


Chat Noir Has a Sidekick

by britishparty



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Ladybug, F/M, Marinette doesn't have a Miraculous AU, basic idea got Bigger Than Intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 11:24:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17263364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britishparty/pseuds/britishparty
Summary: Chat Noir issupposedto have a Ladybug. Adrien knows this. He knows that Paris needs a Ladybug.Chat can fight the hero's fight, but he'll never be a Ladybug.Neither will Marinette, but one day Chat Noir discovers that she can fight the hero's fight, too. With her beside him, things seem like they're on the up and up, and maybe the need for a Ladybug isn't as dire as he thought.Until they're just a bit too unlucky, and then Chat can't do it alone anymore.





	Chat Noir Has a Sidekick

Chat leaps the rooftop and lands hard on a balcony just the side.

Chest heaving, he presses his back against the wall beneath the roof’s overhang, trying to quiet his breathing and listen.

“Can’t hide from me, kitty!” a woman’s voice shrills from a few buildings over.

No, he can’t hide. Chat knows.

He’s got to deal with this _fast_. Minimum damage, minimum casualties.

Chat hears her footsteps on the roof above him. He knows where the butterfly is; it’s in her ring, a heavy thing made of gold with a huge black diamond in the center.

“Cataclysm,” he hisses out as quietly as he can, and presses his palm to the roof above his head. The second it starts to take effect, he ducks out of the way, extending one end of his baton to rest on the floor.

There’s a shriek as the tiles give way beneath the woman’s feet. She scrambles to catch herself, heels audible on the shingles.

Chat sees her legs slide into the gap, and she howls as she realizes she’s stuck.

On cue, Chat uses his baton to toss himself up to the roof, and catching both of her scrabbling hands in his.

“A ring?” he says, giving her a cocky half-grin. “For _me?_ Oh darling, you didn’t have to.”

He slips the ring from her finger and smashes it against the chimney with the butt of his baton.

A thick black mist sweeps over the akuma, revealing a normal human woman dressed up for a high-end restaurant. She looks around dazedly, not yet registering what’s happened.

Chat grabs the black butterfly before it can escape, curling his fist tight around it. He knows he can’t crush it to death anyway.

With his other hand, he slides his baton behind his back and helping pull her from the hole in the roof.

“I apologize, my lady,” he says, smiling as apologetically as he can for the fourteen hundredth time, “I appear to have shattered your ring.”

“I--” the woman starts, angry, but she loses momentum for her frustration and deflates. She wobbles unsteadily on the slanted roof in her heels as she lets go of Chat’s hand. “Thanks, Chat Noir.” Her tone is flat, defeated.

“Do you need to talk about it?” He can see the redness around her eyes, the smudged makeup.

“It’s my issue,” she says. She gingerly collects the remnants of a shattered wedding ring from the tiles around the chimney.

She’s so dejected that Chat wants to press the question, try to help.

“Want a hand down?” he says instead.

She shakes her head and laughs, a trembling, half-hysterical sound. “Drop me on the balcony?”

Chat gives her a short lift down to the balcony below.

He’s grateful the victims are so calm, now; a few months ago, he’d done an interview on the Chat Channel, explaining akumas as best he could, how he handled them, what both victims and the people of Paris could do to help him.

But Chat’s ring is still beeping. He gives the woman a hurried goodbye and launches off into the sky, just barely making it back in through his open bedroom window before his transformation fades.

Plagg gives him a sad, silent look that Adrien ignores. He crosses the room, sliding open his closet door and reaching for one of the empty plastic bottles in what used to be his laundry hamper.

He used to use glass jars, but then he’d accidentally shattered one and the resulting, akumatized mess had taken _days_ for him to clean up, and weeks longer for the police to sort out and start repairs.

Chat Noir is _supposed_ to have a Ladybug. Adrien knows this. Plagg has told him but he _knows_ , too, can feel her absence with every hit he takes, every time he falls, every butterfly he can’t crush in his fingers.

Adrien makes sure his window is closed, and carefully stuffs the black akuma into the bottle. It barely fits, its wings crumpling to get through the opening, but when he screws the cap back on, it looks perfectly fine, fluttering against the plastic in its attempts to escape.

With a sigh of resigned frustration, Adrien puts it on the closet shelf behind a set of folded towels.

The butterflies don’t die. Chat’s Cataclysm doesn’t kill them; they can’t be suffocated, crushed, or starved.

Adrien _knows_ how to deal with them. He just can’t. He needs a Ladybug.

“What’s the longest you’ve gone without her?” Adrien asks Plagg, before he can stop himself.

Plagg looks at him somberly. He was brighter, more alive when Adrien first got the ring. The more time that passed without a Ladybug, without any sign of her, the more dejected he became. He’s slow, sad, spends more time staring out a window than Adrien thought possible for any living creature.

“We’ve never gone this long,” Plagg tells him.

“The longest?” Adrien pushes.

Plagg’s eyes narrow into a glare, but he answers anyway. “The longest?” he repeats, and pauses to think. “Six days. She was only given one earring on accident, and we had to find the other.”

“Her Miraculous is her earrings?” Adrien perks up at that. Plagg hasn’t told him much about Ladybug; he isn’t supposed to, it seems, even in circumstances like these.

“Yeah,” Plagg says. He turns his head back towards the window and goes quiet again.

Adrien places a healthy wedge of cheese next to him, and leaves him in peace.

 

* * *

 

 

School is-- well, it’s school. Even a world with a Ladybug would include Adrien’s history lessons, and then fencing, and then photoshoots and home tutors and PR discussions.

Adrien’s mind is wandering far from his literature class, unable to focus on another romance by Marie de France. He thinks about it constantly, but just like all those other times he can’t focus, he finds his attention ambling towards thoughts of Ladybug.

His eyes flick over Chloe’s face, bored and paying just about as much attention as he is.

Ladybug wouldn’t be Chloe; she’s the first one he considers. Adrien’s not sure he could stand to be her Chat Noir, if he had to.

Nino? Maybe. Adrien’s not sure he’s prepared to _follow_ Nino; that would be an equal partnership. It could work, he could enjoy that, but it’s not the role of a Chat Noir and a Ladybug that Plagg once told him to expect.

He’s designed to be Ladybug’s sidekick, he’s been told. To serve loyally at her side, to temper her, to balance her.

Adrien wouldn’t mind being a sidekick if he had someone to be a sidekick for.

Alya? He could trust Alya, he thinks. She’s a little stubborn, yes, a little intense, but she could work. He could follow her-- maybe not love her, not treasure and honor her like a Chat Noir should, but he could follow her.

What about Marinette? Adrien doesn’t know her that well; she’s quiet in general, but quieter around him. She draws, designs, plays games well, and when need be he’s seen her hold her own against Chloe. She can be determined, can be kind.

He’d follow her, he thinks. Of everything, he’d follow her.

Marinette catches him staring. Her eyes meet his for only half a second before flitting away, and her face slowly turns a bright shade of pink.

He hadn’t meant to be staring.

Not wanting to make her uncomfortable, Adrien turns around and tries to focus again on the board. Still, the idea’s there now, stuck at the back of his mind.

He’d follow her.

 

* * *

 

 

He’d follow her, but not _now_.

The akuma overhead hurls a fireball towards Marinette.

Chat’s instincts take over before he can pause to think. He slams his shoulder into Marinette’s side - that’ll bruise, definitely - and throws them both to the side.

There’s a explosion of light and heat behind them as the meteor impacts, and Chat just grips her tighter and takes a moment to stuff down the anger and panic in his chest.

“Stay out of this!” he hisses, then leaps off her, zigzagging his way across the bubbling magma that used to be pavement.

“The fire of my passion will consume you!” the akuma shrieks.

There’s a burning retort on the tip of Chat’s tongue, but before he can get it out the ground beneath his feet begins to bubble. He lunges to the side as a spray of lava erupts. He can feel the sheer heat of it behind him, and there’s a flash of fear as he scrambles away on the ground, some of the lava splattering only inches from his feet.

“When it’s burned to the ground, we’ll start again!” The akuma has a wild look in its eyes, something that makes Chat Noir want to run for the hills.

There’s movement, out of the corner of his eye: pink and faintly blue. Chat knows instinctively that it’s Marinette.

He turns his head to look in the same instant the akuma does.

There’s the flash of a small red rubber band at her fingers, and then the akuma flinches backwards, grasping at its left eye. It loses height, dropping a few feet as it pulls its hand back to reveal a bubbling spot of pink-red at the center of its eye.

Chat would yell at Marinette, but right now he’s a little more preoccupied with other things. He launches himself up with his baton, shrinking it to slide it behind his back midair.

He collides heavily with the distracted akuma. Chat has to grit his teeth to bite back the rising cry at the sheer intensity of the heat radiating off it.

His eyes watching, Chat reaches forward and grabs the wide, gold-plated collar glowing red with heat from the akuma’s neck.

He releases his hold, letting his entire weight pull down on the collar. It snaps off the akuma’s neck, and Chat plummets for the pavement. He slows his fall with his baton as best he can, hissing out for Cataclysm.

The necklace crumbles in his grip, and he closes his fist around the butterfly before it can escape.

There’s a brief moment where he almost doesn’t remember the akumatized victim before Marinette cries out, “Chat!” and he looks up just in time to catch the man.

The pavement’s still burning hot, almost boiling beneath Chat’s feet as he staggers under the added weight. Chat darts off, the slowly-stirring victim slung over his shoulder as he heads to the end of the block.

The pavement’s cooler here, and Chat sets the man down as Marinette slows to a stop beside him.

“Are you alright?” she asks the man, not even sparing Chat a glance.

“Whoa, hold on,” Chat says, unable to keep the indignation from his voice. “Was that a _rubber band_?"

Marinette looks up at him. There’s some unfamiliar steel in her expression, a determination Adrien’s never seen.

“You needed my help,” she says.

“I-- you were in danger!” Chat protests. “You can’t protect yourself. What if something happened to you?”

Marinette’s look is flat and unyielding. “Don’t you have a job to be doing?”

That feels mean, but she’s right-- there’s still the man sitting on the curb, looking blearily up at Chat Noir. Chat can feel the butterfly still trapped in his fist, beating its undamaged wings against his palm.

“Sorry, Chat Noir,” the man says, his gaze dropping to his feet as he hunches in on himself.

“Hey, now,” Marinette chides gently, sitting down on the curb beside him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The look she gives Chat says _I’ve got this_. Chat feels he ought to argue - it is his job, after all, there’s no Ladybug to do it - but Marinette speaks in an understanding tone that Chat’s never managed to nail down, and the man gives her a weak smile, and Chat thinks that maybe Marinette can help him in the long run.

Chat knows he’s a temporary fix. He can’t make people feel better, can’t comfort them like a Ladybug should. He doesn’t _fix_ lives, he just holds the pieces up and hopes nothing else breaks in the process.

So Chat Noir leaves her to it. He tips his head to Marinette in a brief goodbye, flashes her a small, grateful smile and takes off for his house, plastic-bottle akumas and a sad, still Plagg.

 

* * *

 

 

Patrol is terrible.

Well, Chat mentally amends, not _terrible_. Just not great.

At first, he never minded. He had an excuse to get out of his house-- he’s got to keep the city safe, stay on watch, be quick to respond. He loved the freedom of it. It was just him, the rooftops of Paris, and the baton in his grip.

But after nearly a month of patrols, about the same time Plagg gives up, it sinks in: he’s alone.

Again. He’s always alone.

He should have a Ladybug. He shouldn’t be alone. Chat can _feel_ the wrongness of it in the silence, nothing but rushing wind and pigeon wings.

However, this evening, it’s not quite silence. Chat passes over a row of buildings, far above, and on the wind he can hear soft music, a voice singing along slightly out of tune.

And so what if Chat backtracks, just a little? It’s been a lonely week of patrols, and even being able to flash a smile at some stranger’s rooftop hangout would be an improvement over the dead silence.

Chat darts over the street, balancing in the sky about twenty feet above the roofline as he glances towards the source of the noise.

It’s Marinette’s rooftop. She’s sitting out in one of her deck chairs, fingers curled around the cup of tea in her grip. She’s singing softly to the music playing from her phone.

The song skips in the middle, and as Marinette lifts her gaze from her tea to frown at her phone, she notices Chat Noir. He’s perched up on his baton, feeling like the strangest cross between an intruder and a wallflower.

To Chat’s surprise, Marinette smiles at him. She waves him over with a hand.

Feeling like an unwanted guest, Chat tips forward from his baton and drops onto her balcony.

“Hey,” he says, awkwardly. “Um. Heard your music.”

“I figured,” Marinette says amicably. “Would you like some tea?”

“Sure?” Chat says uncertainly. There’s no teapot up here, no other cup, but Chat’s chilled from the wind and it feels rude to refuse her hospitality.

“I’ll be back in a tic,” Marinette says, setting her cup down on the table and leaping up from her chair. She drags a second chair from behind hers, and sets it out on the other side of the table. She gives Chat a reassuring smile and disappears down a trapdoor into her bedroom-- which is still as pink as Adrien remembers.

The balcony’s nice, a momentary place of calm in the bustle of Paris. Chat can hear the cars below, voices of passersby and the jingle of the bakery door, but it all seems somehow removed. The plants along the balcony railing, the small tree illuminated by fairy lights-- it’s just peaceful.

Marinette returns faster than Chat thought it was possible to make tea. In one hand, she’s got a dark green mug, and the other supports a plate laden with cookies, biscuits, and macarons. She sets both of them smoothly down on the table beside him.

“I’d be no baker’s daughter if I didn’t feed you,” she says, grinning. Marinette sits back down in her own chair, picking up her tea. “How long have you been out?”

“What time is it?” Chat asks. He could check his baton, but he’s comfortable where he is in this chair and that’s far too much movement to get it.

Marinette turns on her phone screen to check. “Five twenty-two.”

“Little over an hour,” Chat answers. “Normally I try to be out for two.”

“Must be hard,” Marinette says quietly, and after a beat she adds, “Sorry,” like she’s not quite sure if she should say it.

When Chat glances over, she’s staring into her tea, a furrow between her eyebrows that Chat doesn’t quite understand.

“Hey, no need for that,” Chat says. “I’m just doing what I can.

“You do a good job,” Marinette says, and he’s not sure who she’s trying to persuade. “Paris is safe because of you.”

Instead of saying anything, Chat picks up a cookie and tries not to think about the wall of plastic bottles in his closet. He chews slowly, trying to find a way to respond that doesn’t mention the hundreds of thousands of euros’ worth of property damage and medical bills he’s either inadvertently or directly caused.

“I’m doing my best,” he says, because that’s the honest truth, and the best that can be said of his efforts.

“It’s enough,” Marinette tells him firmly.

They lapse into silence after that, just the slow drinking of tea and eating of sugared food. Chat likes to think the silence is comfortable; he’s not used to interacting with people while in the mask, but being around Marinette feels-- fitting.

He’d follow her, Chat thinks.

He sets down his mug and stands abruptly. “I’d best be getting back to it,” he says, trying to feign casualness.

Marinette nods. Chat strides to the edge of the balcony and pulls his baton from his back. He can’t help looking over his shoulder though, because she hasn’t said anything.

...considering he’s the stray cat, she looks remarkably abandoned.

“Hey, uh--” Chat’s not sure how to say it, how to offer. “Want a lift?”

Marinette blinks at him with wide eyes. “You do that?” she asks.

Well, no, he really doesn’t. “Um, consider it repayment,” Chat says. “For the tea.”

It seems convincing enough, and brings a smile to Marinette’s face as she gets up. “If I’m hard to carry, it’s your fault.”

Chat crouches down, his back to her. “Climb on,” he says, glancing over his shoulder to flash her his widest grin.

“I’m not that short,” Marinette retorts, playful, as she loops her legs around his waist, one arm under his armpit and the other on his shoulder as she links her hands over his chest.

“I know,” Chat says, teasing, “but now I can do _this_."

He launches them skyward.

It’s maybe the fastest takeoff he’s done out of combat, and Marinette shouts in surprise as they rocket upwards. As they start to fall, Chat pushes off an angled roof with his baton, and Marinette’s shout turns into a whoop as they tip forward.

It’s strange to travel with Marinette on his back. The added weight makes it more difficult to maneuver, but he imagines it’s a lot like having a passenger on a motorcycle; once Marinette gets used to it, learned to follow his subtle movements and shift her weight with his, it feels like second nature.

They don’t talk - can’t, really, with the wind - but Chat can feel Marinette’s occasional huffed laughter against the back of his neck, can feel her grinning cheek pressed up against her shoulder, and all of the added weight is worth it.

However, Chat can’t do this forever, much as he might like to. Eventually he drops to a halt on a row of roofs and sets Marinette down.

“Gonna take a breather, princess,” he says as Marinette slides off his back onto the shingles.

She gives him a teasing grin. “Too heavy?”

Chat places a hand over his heart and feigns shock. “Never, princess!” He can’t help smiling, though, which probably ruins the effect.

Marinette balances her weight perfectly on the slanted tiles, looking strangely at home up here. “Where are we, by the way?”

Chat shrugs, and gestures behind her. “I think there’s a main road that way.”

Marinette takes off in a sprint. Chat’s heart stops momentarily, and then he’s launching himself after her before he can think. What was he thinking, bringing her with him? She’s a civilian, what if she slips? She’s an extra body to protect.

Except-- there’s not even the slightest hesitation in Marinette’s feet. Except Chat finds himself actively having to keep up, chasing after her at full speed.

Except there’s a heart-stopping moment, when Marinette reaches the end of the row of buildings and almost _keeps going_. She stops just in time, wobbling back from the edge of the roof like she’s just remembered herself, and Chat tries to calm his pounding heart.

“Oh, we’re pretty close to Notre Dame,” she says, just barely out of breath, and Chat slows to a stop beside her.

“Huh,” he comments absently. She’s staring out at Notre Dame and he’s watching her, the adrenaline and delight in her eyes and the way she holds herself, so brazen and confident.

There’s a pause, and then the adrenaline fades, and she shrugs back to something closer to shy Marinette. She goes from perfectly at home to wildly out of place, and she glances down at the three-story drop and takes a self-conscious step back from the edge.

“Sorry,” Marinette says haltingly, like she doesn’t know exactly what she’s apologizing for. “I should-- I need to be more careful.”

“Yeah,” Chat agrees, and there’s mingled relief and disappointment in his voice-- she _should_ be more careful, but for just one split second, she was like him. She _understood_. He adds, “You can’t go flying off too many roofs, now,” like he needs to make sure she gets that she’s not a superhero in the same way he is.

“You’d catch me,” Marinette says, leaning back slightly until her shoulder presses against his chest.

There’s a certainty in her voice that should worry Chat, but-- she’s right. She can’t _not_ be right, weird as it is. Marinette could fling herself off the Eiffel Tower, and Chat would meet her halfway.

“Yeah,” he echoes. “I’d catch you.”

They stand there, staring at the remainder of the sunset beyond the buildings.

Marinette’s shoulder is warm against his chest. It’s strange to find such easy comfort in her now, when she can hardly breathe in Adrien’s general proximity.

Chat thinks back to the akumatized victim she’d spoken with. Maybe she’s better at looking after things that need fixing.

“I think I’m ready to go home, Chat,” Marinette says softly.

“Okay,” Chat says.

 

* * *

 

 

“Deets!” Alya screeches as she bursts into the school courtyard, eyes fixed on Marinette.

“What deets?” Marinette asks, bemused.

Adrien’s mouth is left hanging open, mid-sentence to Nino, as they and half the student body turn their heads to look.

“You were with Chat Noir!” Alya says, still at full volume. She sounds a little like she’s accusing a boyfriend of cheating, and she brandishes her phone in Marinette’s face as if she’s using a cross to ward off ghosts.

Adrien’s mouth clacks shut. _Shit._

Marinette takes a careful step back, putting some distance between her and whatever incriminating proof Alya’s showing her.

Hurriedly, Adrien pulls out his phone and goes to check the Chat Channel. As always, it feels dumb and purposeless to check his own fan-blog, run by none other than Alya, but the evidence he’s looking for is there.

Anonymously submitted, the top post is a slightly blurry image of Chat Noir with Marinette on his back, travelling across the rooftops.

“He gave me a lift in return for tea and cookies,” Marinette says. She takes another half-step back as Alya steps forward, trying to avoid the threatening advance.

Marinette’s back hits the railing of the metal stairway next to the bench where Nino and Adrien are sitting.

“Tea and cookies?” Alya says. “But you didn’t text me?”

It’s clear she’s not really trying to intimidate Marinette, but Marinette’s anxious all the same, eyes darting back and forth as she looks for an exit. Adrien finds himself on his feet before he’s really aware of it, a hand on each of their shoulders.

“They were just hanging out,” Adrien finds himself protesting. Uh-- well, he hadn’t planned to intervene, but he’s here now. “It wasn’t like they saved Paris together.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he glances over at Marinette’s face just long enough to see her turn pink. He remembers abruptly how she looked when she shot an akuma in the eye with a rubber band.

Nevermind, they _did_ save Paris together.

Alya takes a longer look at Marinette, apparently realizing just how intense she’s been. Her voice drops back to normal speaking level to say, “Alright, but you still need to tell me everything.” She shrugs Adrien’s hands off and says, “What’s he like?”

There’s a long enough pause that Adrien glances back to Marinette, and finds her rooted to the spot, eyes flicking between his face and his hand on her shoulder.

She’s warm against his palm.

He hadn’t even _noticed_. Adrien pulls his hand back, startled, and manages an apology before he retreats back to the relative safety of Nino, leaving Marinette to Alya’s clutches.

Nino gives him a wide grin. “Never realized you were protective of Marinette,” he says, tone falsely-casual.

“I think I’m more scared of what Alya’s capable of,” Adrien says, brushing off the look Nino’s giving him as he turns to head to class.

Besides, he doesn’t say, Marinette doesn’t need protecting. Adrien remembers the way she looked yesterday: brave, bold, confident, at home. He wonders where that Marinette came from, what he has to do to bring her out.

He wonders what else she’s hiding, under that deer-in-the-headlights look.

 

* * *

 

 

Chat goes careening like a ping-pong ball into the subway, ricocheting off the stairs as he comes to a sliding halt on his back on the empty platform.

 _Fuck_ , that hurt. He’s sure he’s got bruises all over. Luckily, nothing feels broken-- that’s one of the very few things luck seems willing to give him today.

That, and the subway train that comes rushing to a stop beside him, doors opening to show an array of shocked Parisians, and Marinette.

Marinette’s eyes are wide, and she stands in front of the doors and Chat can’t help but think her separate from the crowd, the one thing sheltering the citizens of Paris from whatever danger Chat has in tow.

“Everyone stay on the train!” Marinette shouts over her shoulder, eyes taking in the way Chat’s picking his aching body off the floor, the bruise he can already feel swelling on his jaw. She adds loudly, “Someone call the transit operators! Halt cars to this station until it’s safe!”

She steps off the train. She is the only one to join Chat on the subway platform.

The citizens of Paris seem surprised at their own obedience - and Chat along with them - but no one else moves. The doors ding, and slide closed, and the subway car moves on.

“What timing, princess,” Chat says, giving her a wide and only slightly pained grin. He pretends to dust off his chest like he doesn’t have friction burns on the inside of his gloves.

“You look beat to shit, Chat,” Marinette shoots back with easy camaraderie, leaning on one hip. “Who are you fighting?”

Chat opens his mouth to respond just as something comes clattering rapidly down the stairs. He spins to look, and catches sight of a metal-scaled snake with _way_ more teeth than a snake should have, mouth open and moments from Chat’s arm.

Marinette tugs him back by his tail, overbalancing him and sending him crashing to the ground. The snake goes flying overhead, narrowly missing Chat’s right ear as it clangs off the floor behind them.

“TIme to go,” Marinette tells him briskly, as another two snakes start clacking their way down the stairs.

There’s something terrifying natural in the way she swings herself onto Chat’s back and holds tight. Chat knows what she’s doing before she even touches him, and as soon as she’s secure, he takes a flying leap over the gap of the tracks onto the other side of the subway platform, heading for the stairs on that side.

The snakes lash themselves around in a small heap on the other side of the platform, hissing and coiling over each other. Chat doesn’t spare them the time of day, taking the stairs three at a time to get above ground.

“Rooftops,” Marinette says in his ear, and he complies as they exit the subway, launching them upwards with his baton.

For the brief moment they’re in the air, Chat scans the nearby streets. Two streets over, he spots a writhing mass of glinting steel snakes, where he assumes the actual akuma is. Somewhere in there. He really hopes he doesn’t have to go into that mass of snakes.

Marinette, meanwhile, seems to be one step ahead of him, wheels turning.

“Any idea if those are real snakes, or mechanical ones?” she asks Chat as he sets her down on a rooftop overlooking the scene, pressed behind a chimney to stay out of sight.

“He’s calling himself the Reptiliator,” Chat tells her, “so your guess is as good as mine.”

Marinette digs her phone out of her purse, and peers around the chimney, into the street. After a few moments of Chat’s confusion, she reflects the sunlight off her phone screen and into the street, catching it on an outlying snake.

The snake stills in the spot of light and warmth, pausing its writhing in favour of sunbathing. Right. Cold-blooded: snakes like to sleep in warm places.

“The Louvre pyramid,” Marinette says.

Chat catches on immediately. Well-heated, bright, lots of reflected sunlight.

“Good thing I’m the perfect bait,” he says cheerfully. “Want to go for a jog?”

“Who goes for an afternoon jog?” Marinette teases, even as she pulls herself flush against his side.

“Well, it’s never too late for good habits,” Chat says, and gives her a wink. “Hope you brought your running shoes.”

He lifts them high into the sky, plotting their course to the Louvre. Luckily, it’s not far-- he might have to carry Marinette on his back to jump a row of houses, but she’s plenty quick enough to keep up if they need to improvise.

Destination figured out, he sets them down at the end of the street.

“Hey, knock-off Medusa!” Chat cals, head tilted and smile taunting in his characteristic cockiness. “You and your garden snakes want to have a bite?”

He has their attention in seconds, if all of the metallic snakes hissing and beginning to move his way is any indication. He grabs Marinette’s hand and breaks into a sprint in the opposite direction just as the center of the mass of snakes - where Reptiliator hopefully is - begins to move.

It feels a little like running away from a tidal wave, to be honest. Every time they turn a corner, Chat can hear the snakes clanging off of metal posts and the sides of buildings as they’re forced to turn too. Glancing back just the once shows him a wave of glinting metal and bared teeth, the snakes tumbling over themselves in their haste to pursue.

Chat’s got his baton out and his arm around Marinette’s waist in a second, throwing them up and out of the way of the oncoming tide. They vault up over the last row of buildings and land safely in the Louvre’s courtyard.

Shit, there are _people_ here.

“Everyone get out!” Marinette yells, already taking charge. She’s good at adapting quickly.

Chat’s presence behind her enforcing what she’s saying, and people are already hurrying away, scattering out of the courtyard or back into the Louvre.

“We’re going inside?" Chat asks, incredulous, as Marinette doesn’t slow down on her run towards the pyramid, eyes narrow and hurriedly calculating.

“Light’s going down,” Marinette tells him, and flashes a grim smile. “Ever seen a pit of snakes?”

“If I die here, it’s your fault,” Chat says, and then they’re rushing inside.

The courtyard behind them is empty now, and thankfully so is the floor below them-- and thank god for that, because as Chat glances behind him he can see the first few snakes slipping through the entrance.

It’s much warmer inside the Louvre, and some distinctly cattish instinct is telling Chat to find a nice place to curl up and take a nap and maybe bring Marinette with him. He ignores it easily, thanks to the terrifying thought of winding up in a snake pit.

And there, coming through the entrance into the pyramid, is the central mass of snakes surrounding Reptiliator. They spill down the stairs with the other snakes, slithering menacingly towards Chat and Marinette standing in the middle of the floor.

Just when they’re almost too close for comfort, Chat launches he and Marinette up off the floor, and back up to the platform above. Already some of the snakes are growing sluggish in the sun, the twisting mass slowing somewhat. As Chat watches, the mass begins to break apart, and reveals nothing inside.

Wait-- there’s _nothing_?

Standing there, looking down with Marinette at his side, Chat misses the motion of a figure behind him.

“Too slow!” Reptiliator yells. He’s covered in heavy metal scales like plate armor, and his metal arms lock around Chat’s chest before he has the chance to react.

Marinette strikes out at him, a faster reaction than Chat could manage, but her bare fist collides with the metal plating _hard_ , and she jerks her hand back with a hiss, shaking it to try and dull the pain.

A snake coils itself down the akuma’s wrist and lunges for Chat’s hand, teeth closing delicately around the ring on his finger. Chat curls his hand into a fist to stop his ring sliding off and tries to jerk back, but - is this guy actually made of straight metal, holy shit - Reptiliator’s grip doesn’t budge.

Marinette climbs onto them, one foot on either shoulder, and shoves her arm down between Chat’s back and the akuma’s chest. There’s no space, her hand’s going to get crushed between the metal and Chat’s spine, he can _feel_ her wrist bones dig into the spaces between his vertebrae--

But her fingers closed around Chat’s baton, on his back. And his baton _responds_.

It expands rapidly, slamming into the akuma’s upper arms and forcing his grip open. Chat rips the metal snake off his hand and hurls it into the pit as he wheels around to face the akuma.

Marinette’s still half-on him, feet planted on his shoulders. He’s reaching up to grab her ankles, but Marinette’s hands are drawing the necklace he’s wearing up for Chat to see. It’s a silver snake skull with a heavy chain running through its eye sockets.

It’s creepy. Chat is honestly all too happy to Cataclysm it to dust. Marinette’s hands close over the butterfly as it squeezes itself from the blackened remains, and she falls on her butt on the floor as the akumatized man slumps to the ground, detransforming in a thick black mist as the snakes below disappear.

“Shit _fuck_ , that hurts,” Marinette says from the floor. Chat can see the bright red-white of the skin on the back of her hand where she’d tried to hit the akuma.

He can’t help laughing a little. “Glad to see you’d punch a brick wall for me, princess,” he says, bending down to loop an arm around her and help her up.

Chat picks up his baton from the floor, and after shrinking it, slides it to its place at his back. He still can’t believe it responded to Marinette. It-- it shouldn’t do that, should it? It’s _his_. It should only answer to him.

He thinks of the pure certainty on Marinette’s face, the utter lack of self-doubt, the _of course this will work_ , and thinks maybe the baton responded to her because it had to. Because she askedit to.

Chat wonders what the fuck that’s supposed to mean.

“Now you take this,” Marinette says, carefully squishing the butterfly into Chat’s hands and closing them around it, “and I’ll take him.” She moves past Chat to the man on the floor, staring blearily around at the inside of the Louvre pyramid in shock and confusion.

“Sure you don’t want a lift, princess?” Chat says, pulling a smile back on his face. “I think I made you miss your train stop, after all.”

Marinette gives him a private, grateful smile. “Thanks for the offer, kitty, but he needs a hand, and you need to stop by the station yourself. Gotta get the trains running again.

Chat finds he wants to-- to do something dumb, like sigh dreamily at her _responsibility_. Instead, he just sort of nods awkwardly, and shifts the akuma into one fist so he can take off running with the four minutes of transformation he’s got left.

 

* * *

 

 

" _Sidekick_?!"

Adrien pauses halfway up the stairs to look down at the school courtyard, immediately interested. He’s never heard shy, school-Marinette yell like that.

Apparently, neither has anyone else, because heads are turning and all eyes find themselves on Marinette, glaring like a gathering thunderstorm towards an unperturbed-looking Alya, caught in the middle of the courtyard.

Alya gives a little shrug. “If you’re saving Paris with our local superhero, what else am I supposed to call you?”

Marinette flushes a bright pink as she glances around, realizing how many people are looking at her, but she grabs Alya’s arm and leans in to hiss - quieter, if not quietly - “Yeah, but did you have to post it? Do you know how many weird looks I got on the way here?”

Adrien, still paused halfway up the stairs at Nino’s side, compulsively pulls out his phone and opens the Chat Channel. There’s a few clips and photos from yesterday’s fight, as well as Alya’s own written commentary.

He taps a video, but leaves the audio on his phone off as he glances between Alya and Marinette’s now-hushed conversation, and the footage playing. It’s Marinette stepping off the subway to Chat’s side, filmed through a window two cars down. The first snake arrives just as the subway car passes into a tunnel.

Then there’s Chat and Marinette, vaulting over a building before a tidal wave of metal snakes slams into the building’s side below them. The filmer ducks into a building and slams the door closed as the snakes turn to find an alternate route.

And then there’s a four-second clip of Chat and Marinette sprinting across the courtyard in the Louvre, a quick glance over their shoulders and their mouths moving rapidly as they plan.

And finally, there’s Alya’s commentary, pinned to the top of her blog.

 _Chat Noir’s New Sidekick_ , it’s titled. Adrien taps it open and skims it quickly; it doesn’t mention Marinette’s name, but it’s littered with half-focused photos, and makes no secret that Alya is personally familiar.

The title of the article is enough to prickle uncomfortably at something just under Adrien’s skin. It’s _wrong_. Chat Noir _is_ the sidekick-- he can’t have a sidekick.

Adrien glances back up to see that Marinette has pulled Alya off to one side, hissing something that - if it matches her expression - is both vengeful and mortified.

“You didn’t see it yesterday?” Nino says from Adrien’s side, gaze fixed on the phone still in Adrien’s hand. Nino’s skimming the article over his shoulder, but it’s clear from how vaguely he’s paying attention that he’s already read it.

“I never check the Chat Channel,” Adrien says, which is mostly true, and known fact to Nino.

“It was on the _news_ ,” Nino tells him disbelievingly. “Like, all of Paris saw it.”

Well. Shit. Adrien winces. “Poor Marinette.”

As the implication of that sinks in, Nino grimaces sympathetically. “Yeah, she only lives next door and she probably still had a rough time getting here.”

They share a moment of silence - respectful, for Nino, or guilty, for Adrien - reflecting on the plain fact that being in the public eye is very not _-_ Marinette.

This is absolutely Chat Noir’s fault.

 

* * *

 

 

Or actually, Chat Noir considers two afternoons later, watching from a rooftop as Marinette turns around and sprints towards the screams of terror, it might be just a little bit of Marinette’s own fault.

Chat practically feels like he’s interrupting _her_ fight when he somersaults to her side and throws her a jaunty grin.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he says.

Marinette giggles - she actually snorts a little bit, but Chat won’t mention that ever - and pauses in her calculating eye-over of their current battlefield to roll her eyes at him.

Her casualness, in the scope of things, should be concerning. Chat can only be hopelessly delighted.

“She’s calling herself the Libertarian. Freedom and books, I guess,” Marinette dutifully informs him. “I think I heard her yell ‘Prepared to be educated!’ on my way here.”

“Should I tell her cats can’t read?” Chat offers.

Marinette flashes him a smile and opens her mouth, but her response is cut off as a high female voice shrieks, “Do I hear the voices of the uneducated?”

Chat and Marinette spin to face the sound in time to see a woman round the corner with ridiculous speed.

Chat shifts forward, instinctively moving into a protective stance in front of Marinette. She’s setting her stance too though, fists up.

It’s easy to forget she’s ready for battle, not ready to run for her life.

The Libertarian is holding an open book in one hand and a worryingly sharp fountain pen in the other. She’s balancing easily on the tallest platforms Chat has ever seen, and she shifts her glasses down her nose to level the world’s deadliest librarian stare at Chat.

“There you are, kitty,” she says flatly, not even sparing a glance at Marinette. “Hawkmoth and I think you should learn a lesson.”

Her pen moves lightning-fast across the page, faster than humanly possible, until she finishes with a flourish. She nods once, briskly, and launches herself forward with astonishing speed.

Marinette reacts before Chat can, bowling them out of the way of the Libertarian’s outstretched fountain pen. They collapse into a heap on the ground and Chat hears Marinette’s gasp when his elbow lands with most of his weight on her ribs.

“Sorry, shit,” he says, scrambling up and off her, and pulling her to her feet after. He manages to barely launch them out of the way as the fountain pen comes back towards them, his baton carrying them to the opposite rooftops.

“Plan?” Marinette says.

“Uh, don’t get stabbed,” Chat says, “get the pen. Sound good?”

“Come on, superhero!” the Libertarian calls. “How about a character flaw? One measly little insecurity? An Achilles’ heel?”

Chat glances backwards the Libertarian. She’s scribbling in her book as she talks, and running vertically up the building’s wall towards them.

“Not getting stabbed,” Marinette echoes him. There’s a faint smile on her lips. “We better hurry, then.”

She has one hand on Chat’s baton. Is she still holding onto it? He... hadn’t noticed.

Well, it makes it easier to vault both of them away, so he’s not complaining.

Chat probably wouldn’t be so worried if he knew what the Libertarian does, what her powers are. He hates the akumas that affect people’s minds-- the aftereffects stick around for a while after the akuma is caught, since he’s got no Ladybug charms to heal it.

The Libertarian is so fast that Chat can’t seem to get her to sold still long enough to have a chance of getting the pen. He’s stuck on the defensive, carrying Marinette over rooftops and down alleyways, always evading.

Chat knows how these things go. The longer it takes, the more damage there is. He can never run forever.

He’s trying to think up a better plan when the Libertarian catches him off guard. He’s just a few moments too slow at lifting he and Marinette up off the street, muscles beginning to protest the drawn-out fight.

Chat hears the Libertarian mutter something, the scratch of pen against paper. He shoves hastily at Marinette and knocks her to the ground, trying to clear her out of the way as he turns towards the sound.

He feels the pen-tip slice through his chest.

It doesn’t-- pierce. There’s no wound. The pen went through, but he looks down and there’s no blood, no tear in his suit, not a scratch.

Chat stares blankly at the Libertarian. Her grin is savage and victorious. She’s standing only a few feet from him, making no attempt to run.

The pen is _right there_. He makes a desperate grab for it.

His hand is clumsy and his movements are slow, like an uncoordinated small child. She bats his hand away.

“What’s the problem, Chat Noir?” the Libertarian taunts. “Where’s that fighting spirit?”

He tries to strike out with his baton. He misses, the end of it thunking against the ground about a foot to her left.

The Libertarian says, “Well, now how about a nice flaw, scaredy cat?” She lunges again, and Chat Noir tries to leap back with his usual reflexes, but he’s not fast enough and she catches him in the thigh.

Chat lands badly, too heavy on his right foot and almost crooked on his left. It’s like he’s forgotten how to do this.

“I don’t know how to _fight_ ," Chat realizes aloud, hands shaking. It’s something he’s always had-- the fighting skill came with Plagg, with years of fencing, with _work_. It’s gone, he doesn’t have it anymore.

Chat doesn’t recall ever being this scared in his life.

“Then get out of the way,” Marinette says, back on her feet and stalking past Chat towards the Libertarian.

Marinette pulls his baton from his grip. Chat lets her, almost tripping over his own feet as he desperately tries to clear out of the way.

“Oh, no you don’t,” the akuma says. She lunges again, pen-tip jabbing towards Marinette.

Marinette extends the baton to push against the ground, giving her some extra distance as she leaps backwards.

“Oh my God,” Chat says, watching the Libertarian attack again. Marinette’s going to get hit, she’s going to get _hit_ , she’s going to fucking _die_ and it’ll be his fault for letting her fight--

Marinette is still backing away, trying to escape the akuma’s fountain pen. Chat yells, “Marinette!” as the Libertarian darts forward again with terrifying speed.

His voice rises into a shrill scream, and Marinette startles, eyes wide as she looks over to him.

The Libertarian takes advantage of her stillness to jab the pen forward, striking Marinette in the shoulder. Marinette flinches back, trying to dodge, but she’s too late.

The Libertarian gives her a wide, savage smile and spins back to Chat Noir.

Chat finds himself backing up until his back is pressed against the wall. He can’t do this. He’s fought akumas, but never one like this. Never one who was going to _win_.

As soon as the Libertarian’s back is turned, Marinette hits her in the side of the head with Chat’s baton like she’s swinging a baseball bat.

Chat stares blankly at her as the Libertarian hits the ground between them.

“But-- the pen,” he protests weakly. “She took your fighting too.”

“I don’t know how to _fight_ ," Marinette says, like the very idea is ridiculous. “I did play softball when I was little, though.” She picks up the dropped pen and offers it to Chat. “Cataclysm, if you could?”

“I--” Chat starts. He reaches out halfway but stops. That pen is a weapon. It houses an akuma-- what if he gets possessed by it? What would he do then?

Marinette seems to understand. “It’s okay, Chat,” she says gently, and kneels in front of him, his baton shrunken in one hand the pen offered forward in the other. “It’s not your fear. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”

Chat looks up and meets her eyes. There is a steel to them, a determination.

“I’ll protect you,” Marinette tells him.

Chat takes a deep breath, and lets it out.

Marinette will protect him.

He knows that’s not how superheroes are supposed to work. _He’s_ the protector of Paris. It shouldn’t be someone else’s job to keep him safe.

But-- but he knows Marinette means it. She will follow him into battle, lead him into battle, to keep him and his city safe.

“Cataclysm,” Chat says softly. He grabs hold of the pen in Marinette’s grip, careful to not touch her, and closes his fist around the black butterfly.

The Libertarian is returned to a small, mousy woman behind Marinette. She doesn’t move from her place on the ground.

“Uh,” Chat starts, “hey, thanks. I couldn’t have-- I would have lost. If you hadn’t been there.”

It’s weird to say, but it’s _honest_ , and that matters more.

Marinette laughs at him. It’s a small, private laugh, the type neither Chat nor Adrien have seen much of. “Don’t trip yourself up there, kitty.” She smiles, and holds out Chat’s baton for him to take. “I’m doing what I can to help you.”

There’s the hint of something else on her face, something Chat can’t read quickly enough to understand before it’s gone. Marinette clears her throat and spins on her heel before he can ask.

“Anyway!” Marinette chirps, voice maybe a bit too high, “I ought to call an ambulance. I hope she doesn’t have a concussion.”

Marinette pulls her phone out of her purse. Chat tries very hard not to notice that her hands are shaking as she dials 1-1-2.

Chat’s ring beeps.

“Um-- bye, then,” Chat says lamely to her back.

He can hear the voice of a man over the phone, and Marinette turns to give Chat a little smile and a goodbye wave as she says, “Hi, I’m on the corner of Rue Monge and Rue Ortolan, there was an akuma attack? I found the victim but I hit her with...”

At that point, Chat takes off. He hates chatting with the local authority.

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh, and for the project on carbon bonding,” Ms. Bustier announces over the bell, “your sorted pairs are listed next to the board. Good luck, everyone!”

Adrien stops doodling little black cats on cheese wheels in the margins of his notebook and shoves his things into his bag. He hovers around with Nino until most of the class has already looked over the sheet of paper and drifted out the door.

Adrien’s face breaks into a grin when he reads that he’s been paired with Marinette. Lucky him.

“Shit, Max is already gone,” Nino realizes. “I’m gonna go find him, have fun dude.”

 _“Chloe_?” Alya hisses as she takes Nino’s place. “I will kill her. I wanted to actually get a good science grade this year.”

Alya follows Nino out like she’s just encountered a personal stormcloud. Adrien finds himself smiling despite her anger; it _is_ kind of funny to watch her fight Chloe.

“So, uh,” Marinette starts from behind his shoulder, “I know you’re pretty busy, I, um-- I don’t mind doing most of the work. Not that I don’t think you would, just if it-- if it makes it easier--”

Adrien turns to face her, his grin fading. “That’s not right. I’m going to do my part, Marinette.”

“Oh, uh, yeah!” Her face is a familiar shade of pink. “Sorry for saying you, you wouldn’t, I didn’t mean to say you didn’t do your own work.”

Adrien offers her an easy smile, trying to make peace. “I’m actually free for a few hours today. We could get started? At least figure out what we need to do independently.”

“Oh!” Marinette’s pink face lights up. “Sure, today’s usually not busy at the bakery. You want to come over to work on it?”

“Yes please,” Adrien says. “I just need to call and let my ride know I’m not coming.”

One brief over-the-phone argument later, Adrien finds himself entering the Dupain-Cheng bakery through the door at the back. It’s been a while since he’s been to the bakery, but Sabine pokes her head into the back room and breaks into a smile when she sees him.

“Adrien! So good to see you. How was school, Marinette?”

Marinette rolls her eyes. “Like usual, Maman. Please don’t give us any extra sweets, we have food upstairs in the kitchen.”

Sabine catches sight of Adrien’s disappointed face as Marinette starts up the stairs and tells him, “Wait there just a sec.”

She ducks back into the bakery and returns a few moments later with four different-colored macarons to press into Adrien’s hand and smiles, telling him to make himself at home.

Adrien eats two before he catches up to Marinette in the kitchen.

“I _told_ her not to,” Marinette says when she sees the remaining macarons, but she’s smiling too.

Adrien likes the Dupain-Cheng household.

He follows Marinette up to her room and offers her half of his last macaron. She laughs.

“I’m only taking it because it’s the lavender one,” she warns him. She pops it in her mouth and sets her bag down. “Do you want to go on the roof? It’s a nice day and all. If you want. I mean, it _is_ a nice day, but if you want, we can--”

“Sure,” Adrien says, smiling in a way he hopes is calming. “That sounds awesome.”

Adrien places his bag on the floor next to hers and follows her up the ladder and out onto her absolutely-not-at-all-familiar balcony.

The instant Plagg hears the trapdoor close behind them, he squeezes himself out of the one unzipped corner of Adrien’s bag.

Plagg has been able to feel it since they stepped into the Dupain-Cheng residence; it’s the distant presence of what should be the weight on the other side of the scale-- the Ladybug Miraculous. He knows its proximity instinctively; it’s his balance, creation to destruction.

Marinette was the one Master Fu chose-- there’s no other possibility. She was the one chosen and Master Fu must have been wrong, because Plagg can feel that Tikki is here but his poor Chat Noir has been fighting solo for so long.

Finding Tikki’s box is easy; he squeezes into Marinette’s drawer and pushes aside a folded scrap of paper, and there she is.

He wishes he could talk to her. Tikki always knows what to do, how to play along. Her blind guesses have always been more right that any of Plagg’s carefully-researched hypotheses.

Plagg presses a paw against the front of the box. He could open it-- oh, he _could_ open it. Just to talk, nothing serious. He could close it before Marinette and Adrien come back.

But that’s not what Tikki wants, Plagg knows that. Tikki has faith in things like luck and fate; Marinette was chosen, so therefore the Miraculous is Marinette’s.

Plagg’s been lost before. He’s been misplaced, forgotten; he wouldn’t be nearly as surprised if it were him left in his box in someone’s vanity drawer.

But it was Tikki, which means luck is in Marinette’s favor regardless of whatever else happens.

Plagg darts out of the drawer and back into a pocket of Adrien’s bag when he hears footsteps across the ceiling.

Plagg is buzzing to tell Adrien, but he knows that some things aren’t allowed by the universe. It’s just about all he can do to not burst out of Adrien’s bag for the next two hours he’s at Marinette’s, or during the car ride back to Adrien’s, or in front of Adrien’s dad and his assistant.

“Adrien!” Plagg yells as he feels the bag finally, finally get put down in Adrien’s room with the door closed behind them. He launches himself from the pocket and gives the right side of Adrien’s face a hug.

“Plagg?” Adrien sounds mystified, but Plagg is being slowly pushed to the side as Adrien’s face starts accommodating his smile.

Plagg darts away to look Adrien in the face and blurt, “I like Marinette. You should tell her you’re Chat Noir.”

 _“What?”_ Adrien splutters. “Sorry, Plagg, do you mean that? What?”

“Marinette!” Plagg chirps, zooming off to do a circuit around Adrien’s room before coming back to add, “She’s awesome. She should totally know.”

It’s the best he can do for them, trying to push them together, blur the lines between the civilian and the superhero. It might push Marinette to realize she can be Ladybug, if Adrien can be Chat Noir.

Adrien finds his smile widening. “What makes you say that?” he asks. He settles into his desk chair and watches Plagg spin one of the lines of foosball men on his table.

This is the most animated Plagg has been in months. Even if Adrien has no idea why - or what the hell Plagg is talking about, saying he should reveal himself to Marinette - it’s heartwarming to see him making a nuisance of himself again.

“Plagg, take your mouth off that,” he adds, still grinning, when Plagg attacks the feet of the foosball goalie.  
“You did also forget to feed me,” Plagg says scornfully, and darts away from the goalie to tip his head back and cross his arms. “Not that I’m holding it against you, or anything.”

“Yeah, yeah, here you go.” Adrien digs out the child-proof container of cheese he keeps in his bag and throws Plagg a wedge. “Now, _why_ exactly should Marinette know about me?”

“Sthe’th a good perthon,” Plagg tells him around the mouthful of camembert. “I trutht her.”

“People already know she’s my ‘sidekick’,” Adrien reminds him, his voice heavy with sarcasm around the air quotes. “And giving her more information about Chat Noir is smarter, when she’s already a target?”

“You should really open up to someone, kid,” Plagg says, and licks his lips. “Normally you’ve got a Ladybug to talk to about all this, even if you two do keep stuff vague for a while. You’ve just got me.”

“You’re perfectly good company,” Adrien protests. Plagg opens his mouth as wide as he can and points at the cheese container. Adrien throws a piece of cheese into his open mouth and adds, “Well, you are when you think with your brain instead of your stomach.”

“Shtill,” Plagg tells him, and swallows, “I want to meet Marinette. And I want her to know about me.”

“I’ll think about it,” Adrien promises.

 

* * *

 

 

He thinks about it a lot.

Adrien thinks about it in the middle of his and Marinette’s presentation on carbon bonding. He thinks about it when Nino throws an arm around Marinette’s shoulder and she bursts out laughing at whatever meme he’s got open on his phone. He thinks about it when he and Marinette are playing best of seventeen on her computer’s Street Fighter emulator.

Chat Noir thinks about it at really inopportune times-- although that’s about his luck, isn’t it?

He thinks about it when Marinette punches a three-foot green goblin in the face. He thinks about it when he misses the ledge Marinette just landed on and plummets six stories before remembering to catch himself. He thinks about it when Marinette grabs an escaping black butterfly between her teeth by jumping off the Eiffel Tower.

He remembered to catch her for that last one. That was the most important part of that sunt.

She’d also been grounded by her parents when _that_ video clip hit the Chat Channel, but grounding doesn’t work very well when one of your best friends is a superhero and very good with heights.

So: Adrien thinks about it. A lot. He thinks about it, and he realizes that Marinette trusts him with her life-- realizes that saving Paris has become just as important to Marinette as saving him.

He trusts Marinette with his life, both halves of it.

Marinette greets him on her balcony one evening with hot cocoa and a plate of warm brownies.

Chat stares at her like he’s meeting her for the first time all over again.

“Don’t like brownies?” she asks after a pause, puzzled.

“You’re, um,” Chat says as his brain reboots, “you’re really great. Can I tell you who I am?”

 _“What?”_   Marinette says very loudly. Her eyes look twice their normal side and her confusion is quickly expanding into shock.

Chat smacks himself in the face. “Sorry,” he says, trying not to blush or at least not die of embarrassment, “that was really badly executed.”

He takes a few cautious steps forward, dropping into a crouch next to Marinette’s fold-out chair. Her eyes don’t leave his.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” Chat says seriously, “you are a hero of Paris and my best friend and I would like you to see me without my mask.”

“Okay,” Marinette says in a very little voice.

“You’re okay with that?” he asks. Just to be sure.

Marinette takes a deep breath, and pulls herself together. “Yes,” she says, firmer. “All of Paris knows who I am anyway. Your identity is a secret if you want it to be, but it’s your choice to tell me.”

“Do you want to know?” Chat asks. He refuses to let her make this choice be about what he wants, when she’s the one that stands to be targeted for it.

“Yes,” Marinette admits, soft and quiet and honest in a way Chat suspects was harder than she made it sound.

Chat stands up and takes a few half-steps back. He makes sure he’s out of view of the streets below, and takes a deep breath.

He can’t undo this. This decision will stay with him forever, for the rest of his life, for every mistake Chat Noir and Marinette will ever make.

 _You needed my help,_ Marinette had said. He _still_ needs her help.

It may ruin him, some day.

It may still be worth it.

“Plagg,” Chat says, “claws in.”

There’s a pause when Adrien stands there, eyes closed, and Marinette doesn’t say a word. He pries his eyes open to give her a nervous smile and sees her staring blankly at him, jaw open.

“Good or bad?” he says, half-teasing but hating the shake to his voice.

Marinette seems to reboot at the sound of his voice. “Oh!” she says, and splutters a few times before managing, “Um, good, still good, very great. Hi Adrien.”

“Hi Marinette,” he says, teasing, and grins wide. He sits in his usual chair and picks up a brownie.

“I’m Plagg,” Plagg chimes in with a smile. “I’m Adrien’s kwami.”

“Hello,” Marinette says politely, voice still vaguely faint with shock, and then, “Are those antennae?”

“They’re whiskers,” Plagg tells her. “Thanks for helping us out, since we don’t have a Ladybug around.”

Adrien has become too focused on the still-warm and delightfully chewy brownie in his hands to notice Marinette’s slight flinch, or the strain in her smile.

“Yeah,” she says, “no problem.”

Plagg’s smile fades a little.

“Hey, Adrien,” Marinette says after a few long moments of silence, “I think I’m still in shock.”

Adrien glances over. Her face is a pretty shade of pink and she’s still staring at him like he’s grown a second head.

“I’m not really surprised,” he admits, “I was-- kind of in shock for a few weeks, too.”

“You’re a _superhero_ ,” she whispers at him. “Like. You have magic powers!”

A sort of strange, serene calm comes over her as she fully realizes the extent of that. “I run around Paris with Adrien Agreste in a leather bodysuit,” she whispers sagely to herself. “Alya runs a blog about _Adrien Agreste_.”

“Please don’t say it like that,” Adrien says, barely managing to contain his laughter at her expression. “People actually do run blogs about me. I like the ones about Chat Noir more.”

“I like the ones that vehemently deny that I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” Marinette tells him. “I wish Alya ran one of those.”

“Wait, then who do they think you are?”

Marinette laughs. “They think I’m someone’s secret identity. Like, shit, I don’t know, illusions or something. Superhero stuff.”

Adrien grins. “Sure sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.”

She giggles. “Doesn’t it though?” There’s a pause as she contemplatively picks up a brownie and then says, “I’m glad you decided to tell me, Adrien. It does-- it does mean a lot.”

“I thought it seemed fair,” Adrien tells her. “I’ve known who you were since you sat down in class. I wanted you to know I trust you.”

Marinette’s smile - despite her persistent blush - is both happy and somehow upset. “Thanks. I trust you too. For what it’s worth.”

“It’s worth a lot,” Adrien says.

He means it more than he thought he would.

 

* * *

 

 

Chat Noir is sprinting along at a breakneck pace of Parisian rooftops, but somehow it’s still all he can do to desperately watch Marinette overhead.

One hundred feet up, twirling Chat’s baton and striking out at the akumatized victim like it’s second nature to her, Marinette is balancing precariously on the back of a giant bird of paradise. Her four square feet of purchase are shared with the akuma of a feathered twelve year old boy with a brilliant throat of purple and a fanning red-pink tail, calling itself Paradisian-- the Parisian bird of paradise.

Marinette ducks low, out of Chat’s field of view as he runs across rooftops below the bird, and he sees the end of his baton strike high, just beyond Paradisian’s ear.

Chat almost misses the next ledge ahead of him when Marinette goes to take a step back, a dodge, and realizes she’s run out of bird to stand on. She twists to the side and ducks halfway off, her left hand clinging to the top of the bird as her right hand grabs a handful of downy feathers on the bird’s underbelly.

Recovering quickly from the terrified expression on her face, she flashes Chat a grin that looks all too natural. He tries to give her a look that is anything other than panicked. He can’t get _up_ there, can’t help her. It would be suicide for her to drop the baton for him, at that height, but-- he can’t do anything.

Marinette hauls herself back up onto the bird. The baton in her hands moves like an extension of herself, and she strikes out quickly at the opponent Chat can’t see.

There’s a loud cry that Chat can hear even from below. He feels victory surge in his chest; it’s more of a squawk than a human voice, so it had to be Paradisian.

The giant bird’s wings slow and stop, and it hangs suspended for one moment before vanishing in a thick cloud of black smoke.

Oh, _shit_.

Marinette still has the baton in one hand, but with her other arm, she’s pulling the boy in close, wrapping herself around him as they start to plummet.

Chat sprints along the rooftop to catch up to them. A hundred feet, give or take-- that’s a long way to fall. He’s probably the only person in Paris who stands a chance of surviving it.

Marinette is extending the baton as they fall, hoping to catch them, but-- Chat’s fallen from that sort of height before. It hurts. She won’t be able to do it without powers, without those unnatural protections the Miraculous gives him.

Marinette gets the end of the baton down on the ground ahead of Chat, but even with it they’re still plummeting, going down a fireman’s pole at terminal velocity. They’re not going to make it.

Chat Noir does what he knows: he follows Marinette.

They’re about to hit the edge of the rooftop when he jumps.

He slams into them midair and something in Marinette’s shoulder gives, she shouts out in pain and shock, but Chat’s curling himself around both of them as they tumble to the ground.

Chat manages to take most of the impact when they land; he can feel the wind crushed out of his chest, and something probably - definitely, absolutely - cracks and he rolls to a stop, thunking his head on a lamppost.

He uncurls slowly, body protesting even the slightest movement. Marinette hastily rolls herself and the boy off of him.

“Jesus fuck,” she gasps, chest heaving. Her voice is hoarse; there seems to be hardly any air left in her lungs.

“That’s a word you shouldn’t say,” the twelve year old tells her, voice quiet and raspy. He looks a little unfocused, but mostly unharmed.

“If your mom wants to begrudge me a fuck after what I just did,” Marinette informs him weakly, “I will take her to court.”

 _“Fuuuuck_ ,” Chat says for emphasis, and because he just got enough air in his lungs to say it. It hurts like hell to let his chest deflate, but it also hurts like hell to put air back in it, so that’s just the sort of day he’s having.

“Chat, shit, are you okay? What’s bad?”

“Ribs,” he tells her weakly. “Ribs are definitely not good.”

“Oh, fuck,” Marinette realizes loudly. “The akuma. The _fucking_ akuma, shit _fuck_.”

“That’s a lot of fucks,” the boy tells her. He’s starting to smile at it though, so Chat’s pretty sure he’s okay.

“Here, kid, take my phone,” Marinette says, shoving it at him with its newly cracked screen and all. “Call 1-1-2, get Chat an ambulance if he needs it. And call your parents.”

She peels herself off the pavement with visible pain, and Chat’s baton shrinks in her left hand. Chat tries not to notice that she avoids moving her right shoulder as best she can, because she is very clearly trying not to think about it too hard.

“I’m borrowing this, Chat,” she tells him. “I’m gonna-- gonna go look. You take a breather.”

“Breathing,” Chat reminds her, “is not my friend right now.”

Marinette winces, and tries, “I promise I won’t fall from that height again?”

“Go catch that piece of shit,” Chat tells her, instead of calling her out on the absolute bullshit that promise is. He knows she’d fall from that height without him, if she needed to save the city.

“I promise I won’t fall without you,” she amends, which is more likely, and takes off.

Chat lies flat on his back and tries not to think about quite how badly he’s fallen for her, in more than one way. She doesn’t have to help him, doesn’t have to risk her life like this. She’s got no obligations.

Instead, Chat tries to think of ways he could go to a hospital and not have to reveal his identity.

Eventually, he hears the sirens, so he picks himself up, takes Marinette’s phone from the kid, and limps into an alley in the vague direction of his house.

He’s three streets over when something in his chest cracks _back_ into place. That’s somehow even more painful than breaking it.

“That sure hasn’t happened before,” he grumbles at Plagg, who isn’t there, and takes a few experimental deep breaths.

It still aches, like a bad bruise would, but it’s definitely not broken anymore. Apparently the Miraculous can fix that.

Chat climbs the nearest fire escape and waits for Marinette.

He’s on the roof for a long while, watching the stars overhead, when the baton _thunks_ down beside him and Marinette lands with it a moment later.

His relief at seeing her is stopped as soon as he sees the look on her face.

“No luck,” she says grimly. “Wherever that thing’s gone, it’s gone.”

“I really hope this one stays gone,” Chat says. “Remember Stoneheart?”

Marinette winces.

“That took _days_ ,” Chat tells her, and then he’s Adrien again, leaning heavily into her as she sits down next to him.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Marinette runs her fingers through his hair and looks suspiciously like she’s trying not to cry.

“It’s just-- _shit_ , Marinette,” he says, because he’s started and he needs someone to know. “This is fucking hard, you know? I’m not-- I’m not strong enough, I can’t do this.” He won’t cry. They’ve had enough stress today, he really doesn’t want to cry.

“Yes you can,” she says, and her hands are firmer in his hair now, and he’s not looking at her face because he doesn’t want to know if that shake to her voice means she’s crying. “I believe in you, Adrien. You can save Paris. You _do_.”

There’s desperation and determination in her voice and Adrien has no idea what to make of that. He only knows that there’s an akuma loose out there and he wants to cry, but he already feels tired and apathetic and he knows it’s his job, he’ll do it, but he wishes so desperately and miserably that he had someone else to help him.

Well-- he can’t say that. He does have someone.

“Thank you, Marinette,” Adrien says, and swallows to try and get that damn tremor out of his voice. “For everything. You have so much more to lose than I do.”

“You needed help,” she says, like it’s just that simple.

“If you ever--” Adrien starts, and then stops, and turns to seek out the green reflection of Plagg’s eyes in the dark. “Plagg?” he asks gently. “Can I at least offer?”

He hopes Plagg understands what he means. Can he offer Marinette the Black Cat Miraculous, if she ever wanted to use it? If the city needed saving, if Adrien couldn’t, can he ask Marinette?

“No,” Plagg tells him, his voice wretched. “I’m sorry. She wasn’t chosen for the Black Cat.”

“I--” Marinette stops as the realization hits her, and starts again, “Adrien, no, I’d never. The ring is _yours_.”

There’s something twisted and awful in her face that is all-too visible, tear tracks reflecting on her cheeks in the dim lightning, and Adrien just nods.

“Okay,” he says. He stands up, trying very hard not to let the wince of pain in his ribs show, and gives Marinette a tired half-bow. “Can this kitty cat offer you a lift, princess?”

Marinette rolls her eyes. “Alright, yes, just so you can go home and sleep.”

 _Because you’ll need it_ goes unsaid.

“Claws out,” Adrien says, and Marinette grips the baton comfortably and wraps one leg over his.

She’d make a very good superhero. Whoever chose Adrien as Chat Noir clearly chose wrong.

Marinette was born to be a superhero, so someone should give her some powers.

 

* * *

 

 

Adrien’s hunched over a set of math problems he needs to understand by tomorrow when someone screams.

On instinct, he leaps to his feet and spins around, one hand reaching behind his back for the baton that isn’t there.

At the back of the room, Rose is trying to crush herself out of the way of a small black butterfly that’s drifted lazily through the open window. It isn’t _aimed_ at anyone, doesn’t have a target in the way Adrien knows they can.

He knows instinctively that this is the akuma of a twelve year old boy turned bird of paradise.

Rose screams as the butterfly follows her movements, shoving back her chair and stepping away. The butterfly goes to drift after her, almost alighting briefly on the edge of Rose’s chair as it does.

Juleka picks up her notebook, neatly closes it, and slams it down over the butterfly.

There’s a moment when Adrien thinks, for one bizarre, desperate second, that Juleka killed it. It was a normal bug, it’s dead, and everything will be fine.

Then Juleka erupts in a plume of black mist and feathers, and standing frozen in her place is a carbon copy of the boy in his akumatized form, brilliant purple throat and fanning tail.

“Everybody out!” Marinette takes charge. “This is going to be all across Paris, and it’s going to be _bad_.”

“You beat him four days ago!” Nino protests, even though he’s already shoveling his belongings into his bag.

“Not well enough,” Marinette mutters, and then announces louder, “If you live close by, go home and lock your doors! If you live farther, find someone else to stay with. Make sure your parents know where you are and that you’re safe! Anyone who needs to can go to mine.”

Rose is frozen beside Juleka, horrified. Marinette takes the stairs two at a time and wraps an arm around her, gentle but firm.

“Chat Noir will have to help her,” she says. “You need to get to safety.”

Rose just nods, and lets Marinette lead her out.

Marinette meets Adrien’s eyes on the way to the door, and there is a look of pity and of pain on her face.

“Let’s see how much cheese I can get before they start moving,” Adrien says with forced optimism, alone in the room with Plagg.

“It won’t be enough,” Plagg tells him grimly. “This is going to suck.”

“Yeah,” Adrien agrees. “Claws out, Plagg.”

He gives it a few seconds and then comes slamming out of the classroom like he’s in a hurry, seeing only a few stragglers in the courtyard being shepherded out of the school by Marinette.

“Princess!” he calls over, and Marinette’s head whips around to spot him.

One of the kids takes a picture of Chat as he vaults the railing and sprints towards Marinette.

There’s no smile on her face as she addresses the last few students to tell them, “Get somewhere safe. This one might last a few days.”

She reaches out and grabs Chat’s hand, stepping in close so he can carry them easily. “Where to?” she asks, but there’s something grim underneath the sharp grin she gives him.

“We need to make a cheese stop,” he tells her, and launches them up and out of the school in the direction of his house.

They tumble in through his open window, and Adrien drops the transformation to grab Marinette’s backpack and start cramming it with cheese and granola bars and water bottles. Plagg seems torn between taking a cat-nap in the fridge on a cheese wheel, and eating as much of the cheese wheel as he physically can.

“I’m going to ask Alya to get the Chat Channel working like a locator,” Marinette informs Adrien, typing on her phone as she talks. “If we can figure out where the akumas are before they start moving, we might be able to get of a few easily.”

“Good idea,” Adrien says. He tips his duffel bag inside out to empty it, and starts shoving plastic bottles inside.

He throws the duffel bag on the floor next to Marinette’s backpack, and turns to her.

Adrien’s mouth is halfway open, words dying on his lips, when he notices the look on her face.

Marinette’s expression is something wretched, heartbroken, as her eyes fix on his open closet door. Adrien’s moved the towels that normally hide the bottles, and she’s staring, horrified, at the sheer number of tiny black butterflies in their plastic prisons.

“It’s pretty scary,” Adrien agrees softly.

“I’m so sorry,” Marinette whispers. “Adrien, I-- I’m so _sorry_.”

“It’s not like I caught them all in a week,” he half-jokes, trying to lighten the mood. The look on her face is terrifying. “It’s a big collection, it took me a while.”

“You need a Ladybug,” Marinette realizes. She still looks upset and terrified but there’s an emotion Adrien has seen too many times on her face and _still_ can’t place.

“Chin up, princess,” Adrien tells her, trying for playful. “This kitty’s still got claws. Speaking of-- Plagg, claws out!”

Chat Noir hauls Marinette’s backpack onto his own shoulders and holds out the duffel bag for her. “I’ve got work to do. You’re welcome to come along, if you want.”

“Can we go to my house?” Marinette asks instead. She takes the strap of the duffel bag with shaking hands and adds determinedly, “There’s something I need to do.”

“Sure,” he says. “I’m not sure now’s the time to meet the family, but if you...” he trails off. Whatever’s shaken Marinette, she seems to not even hear his usual jokes.

Chat Noir vaults them across the streets of Paris with unusual haste; the longer they wait, the sooner the akumas are likely to wake up and start their storm across the city.

Besides, Marinette isn’t quite the companion she usually is, like this.

They land a little more jarringly than usual on Marinette’s balcony. She pulls herself away from his side and drops the duffel bag next to her chair.  
“I’ll be right back up,” she says, voice shaky, and vanishes beneath the trapdoor.

Chat has no idea what’s scared her so much. Was it that terrifying to realize just how little Chat can actually do, in the face of Hawkmoth’s powers? She already knew he was a temporary fix; she always seemed fine with it.

The entire trip from his house to her balcony, he could feel her shaking. Not just her hands-- down to her bones, a deep fear that he knows, has felt himself.

Marinette comes back up. Instead of closing the trapdoor quietly, she lets it slam, instead keeping her hands curled over something small.

“Adrien,” Marinette says hesitantly, “can you-- take off the mask? Please?” She looks so small and vulnerable right now, uncertain and scared, and Adrien releases the transformation without conscious thought.

Plagg sits in the air a few feet off and watches, unnaturally quiet.

Wordlessly, Marinette uncurls her hands and holds out a small hexagonal box.

Adrien’s heart falls through his stomach.

It’s a Miraculous.

Marinette has a Miraculous.

How the hell did Adrien never expect this? That expression she wore, when she realizes how hard it was to be a Chat Noir without a Ladybug-- it was _guilt_.

It’s stupidly hopeful and he knows it, but Adrien looks to her ears anyway. She’s wearing silver cat paw earrings, not anything that could be the Ladybug Miraculous.

“You don’t have to be the sidekick anymore,” Marinette says quietly, drawing his attention back to her face. " _You_ can be the hero. You can be Ladybug.”

Adrien finds himself already shaking his head. That’s just wrong. He doesn’t know how he was ever going to suggest Marinette wear the Black Cat Miraculous, because when she tells him to take her Miraculous, he feels like crying. He _can’t_ be Ladybug. He knows it the same way he knows the rumble of power Cataclysm carries, knows the sound of Marinette’s laughter.

The ring is his. He is Chat Noir.

“The earrings are yours,” he says.

Marinette shakes her head.

 _“You’re_ Ladybug.”

She shakes her head hard enough to whip her bangs into her eyes. “No, I’m not,” she says. “Fate or luck or whatever, it picked wrong. I can’t be a superhero. I can’t be your Ladybug.”

Adrien has to bite back a humorless laugh. “No,” he tells her, “you don’t get it. Earrings or not, you’re Ladybug. You _have_ been Ladybug.”

Marinette presses the box into his hands, shaking her head. “If you won’t use it, give it to someone who deserves it,” she says firmly. She curls his fingers around it and meets his eyes.

She-- shit, she really doesn’t know it, does she? Maybe she doesn’t have the costume, the powers, but it’s her. It’s always been her.

He’s followed her, Adrien realizes. With her mask or without, Chat Noir has followed his Ladybug.

Marinette wants him to give the Miraculous to someone who deserves it.

“Okay,” Adrien says softly.

There is nothing heroic in Marinette’s stance right now; she’s not smart and strong and courageous in all the ways Adrien’s seen her. She’s just-- human, for a moment.

“I found someone who deserves it,” he says, and gives the Miraculous to its rightful owner.

It’s selfish, and he knows it.

Chat Noir needs a Ladybug; this is true, has always been true. Paris needs a Ladybug; _that_ , at least, is undeniable.

Adrien needs Marinette, and he knows there can’t be any other Ladybug-- not for him, not for Paris.

It’s selfish, he knows-- it’s selfish and optimistic, but somehow it only feels _right_.

Marinette stares at him. Adrien does his very best not to notice the teardrops clinging to her eyelashes.  
“Stupid kitty,” she tells him. Her voice comes out choked.

“I know,” Adrien says.

Marinette looks from him to the box in her hand. Adrien tries not to miss having her attention.

“I feel bad,” she admits, “to make you do it without-- her.”

“I won’t ask you to use it,” Adrien tells her. “It’s your choice. I won’t take that from you.”

“Why not?” The look Marinette gives him makes him wonder if she _wants_ him to ask. If it would be easier for her to choose, if he asked.

“Because,” Adrien says simply.

Because it has to be her choice, just like it has to be his ring. Because he’s already waited this long. Because he’s following her. Because she’s already Ladybug. Because a pair of earrings make no difference in who she is.

Because Adrien loves her.

Marinette pulls him into a fierce hug. He can feel damp spots on her shoulder, from the tears she isn’t crying.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. The edge of the Miraculous’ box digs into Adrien’s spine.

“Anytime, my lady.”

He half-hoped the title would sound like a joke, when he said it out loud.

It doesn’t; it sounds like a promise.

Adrien is Marinette’s, if she’ll keep him. Her sidekick.

Ladybug and her Chat Noir, with Miraculous or without.

 

* * *

 

 

Chat staggers to his feet.

He can feel his ankle strain under his weight, jolts of pain shooting up from where he’d rolled it earlier. A dark bruise up the right side of his torso makes breathing hurt, and his left ear won’t stop ringing.

Three identical Paradisians give him identical grins.

He’s been kept busy since yesterday; he and Marinette managed to clear five transformed victims before the akumas started moving. It was a start, but he’s only managed eight more in the time since, and Paris is going to take just that much longer to fix for every second he lets more akumas run free.

Working with law enforcement, Chat’s gotten parts of central Paris up and running again. Many places at the edges of the city, where he won’t be able to get to for a few days, are still stuck in tentative lockdown.

He’s gotten dangerously close to the edge of a “safe” area with these three, and he’d rather they not get there.

Like a blessing from above, Marinette slows to a stop at his side.

“I thought you were in class today,” Chat says, shooting her a sideways look.

“Lunch break,” she says. “I brought sandwiches and cheese.”

Without a second’s hesitation, Marinette breaks into a sprint towards the three Paradisians. She’s tackled one to the ground and put it in a surprisingly effective headlock by the time the other two remember to react.

One flares its tail out in time to have its feathers crumbled by Chat as he comes crashing in, and the other leaps out of the way and unfolds its wings to hop up to the rooftop.

Marinette wrests the bracelet off the akuma’s wrist, and it dissolves in her hand as the victim is transformed back. She crushes the freed butterfly in her fist and launches herself fearlessly into Chat’s scuffle, pinning a flailing wing to the ground so he can get a free hand to tear the bracelet away.

“Why do you know how to put someone in a headlock?” Chat asks as she pulls him off the pavement, one hand closed over his own butterfly.

Marinette huffs a laugh. “I babysit.”

She turns sharply on her heel, eyeing the akuma perched on the roof, its clawed toes curling over the building’s rain gutter as it peers down at them. Paradisian lets out a strange echoing call, and stills as Hawkmoth’s tell-tale butterfly shape appears over its face. After a pause, it stops and calls again, louder and aimed towards the sky.

While it’s busy, Chat quickly pulls an empty bottle from Marinette’s backpack. He crams his black butterfly and then Marinette’s into it, screwing the cap shut again and stuffing it back into her bag.

“You’d best move quickly,” Chat tells the two dazed, un-akumatized victims sprawled on the street behind them. “It’s still not safe here.”

The woman, who seems a little less confused, nods and grabs the arm of the teenage boy that’s next to her, and takes off in the opposite direction.

Chat likes it when people get the message.

“Baton?” Marinette suggests as Chat turns back to her.

“Right.” He’s got it off his back and has them halfway up the side of the building before he remembers an important detail about birds making noise: they do it for a reason.

He clears the roofline and is greeted with a small flock of akumas, either mounted on giant birds or flying with their own wings. That sure was an alarm call, wasn’t it.

“Maybe _not_ ,” Chat says, and shrinks the baton just as quickly as he’d extended it.

He takes the brunt of the impact as they hit the street heavily, and Marinette rolls off of him and has him moving on his feet before he’s really registered the pain. His rolled ankle sends jolts through his foot with every other step, but hopefully Plagg can get to fixing that soon.

“Any chance we can take this many?” she asks him. She’s holding his hand as she runs, pulling him further from the akuma-free area of central Paris.

“Very little,” he says. “Haven’t slept, think I missed breakfast.”

Marinette looks back to give him a stern look that almost has her going face-first into a streetlamp before Chat pulls her out of the way. They round the corner and she yanks open the first door she can grab, tumbling them quickly inside and shutting it behind them.

There’s the flurry of wings outside as a worrying amount of akumas and Parisian fowl turned giant-birds-of-paradise go past, and then a pause.

“Should buy us some time,” Marinette says softly. “Lunch break?”

Chat sits with her in the stairwell of what’s probably someone’s apartment building, and she starts digging through her backpack.

There’s a moment’s pause as Chat looks around, and releases the transformation.

Plagg makes a small wheezing sound and collapses dramatically onto Adrien’s knee.

“Cheese!” he wails. “How could I withstand such treatment without cheese!”

Marinette doesn’t smile as she hands him a wedge of cheese. “Sorry, Plagg,” she says.

“Don’t worry, Marinette,” Adrien tells her with a little smile, “he’s playing it up.”

“Am not!” Plagg protests, leaping into the air. “I’ll have you know that no Chat Noir has ever stayed transformed as long as you do. _Ever!”_  

Adrien just gives him a chastising poke. He doesn’t know what to say that won’t make Marinette feel guilty, so he accepts the sandwich she hands him and keeps his mouth full.

“I called your dad this morning,” Marinette tells him. Adrien tries very hard not to choke on his sandwich. It’s good, and choking would be a waste of sandwich. “Well,” she continues, “I think technically I called his secretary? But he talked to me.”

“Yeah, I-- I kind of forgot to check in,” Adrien says. “I maybe should’ve thought of that.”

“I told him that I was going to bring you back to the bakery, since your driver wasn’t around,” she says, “but you got caught by one of the butterflies on the way. He hung up pretty abruptly after that, said he had to check on something-- point is, you’re covered. Until this gets cleaned up, probably.”

She sits on the stair beside him, squishing them both a bit at the shoulders, and he wraps an arm around her and leans his head against her shoulder.

“Thanks, Marinette,” he says gently. “It means a lot to me.”

There’s definitely a pink tint to her cheeks as she laughs and says, “Least I can do, kitty.”

He’s glad that Marinette is the one who was supposed to be Ladybug. She’s kind, and maybe just a little bit of a hero, from time to time.

Adrien tries not to think about about her Miraculous too much. He knows if he really needed it-- if there was nothing left between Hawkmoth and Paris, Marinette would use the Ladybug Miraculous. He hopes if there was nothing left between Hawkmoth and him, she’d use it, but he won’t ask her to do that for his sake. It’s not his call to make.

Adrien knows that there’s something deeper than a blind choice that binds he and Marinette to their Miraculous; he _is_ Chat Noir, every part of him. Not just the suit-- that helps, maybe, but all it did was give him a nudge in the right direction. Plagg told him he should help, so he did. He did and it’s a part of him, always was, but the Black Cat Miraculous helps him show it.

Marinette is even braver, even stronger than he is. She didn’t have that. No one assigned this to her, asked her to save Paris.

Marinette wasn’t a superhero. She said no.

She said no, and then Chat Noir needed help, so she picked up a rubber band and a can-do attitude.

It didn’t start with all of Paris. It just started with him.

“Here,” Marinette says, “let me check your ankle.”

She scoots down two stairs, away from where Adrien’s just realized he left his arm across her shoulders, and starts to roll up the bottom of his pant leg. He tucks his arm back into his side, swallows the last bite of his sandwich, and tilts his foot to give her better access.

“Ohh-kay, that’s a little tender,” he says as she pokes very gingerly at his ankle and turns it slightly side to side.

“Might be sprained,” she says. She’s scarily efficient as she digs through her backpack and produces a roll of bandage.

Marinette wraps his ankle quickly and tidily, and Adrien bites his lip to keep his dignified silence.

“If I had a splint,” she says, “that’d be helpful, but this’ll have to do until Plagg gets you patched up again.”

“Where’d you learn that?” Adrien asks as he rolls his pants leg back down, and Marinette produces another piece of cheese for Plagg.

“Not all of us heal so quick,” she says lightly. “Luckily I haven’t taken many hits yet-- nothing more than a sprain.”

“You fell from a _hundred feet_ ,” Adrien says with disbelief. “But I was the only one who broke something?”

Marinette shrugs. “You did dislocate my shoulder during that. Guess that’s just my luck, huh?”

Plagg cackles. “That’s my luck, princess, not yours.”

Adrien gives him a narrow look. Plagg seems to have no problem repeatedly mentioning that Marinette has the Ladybug Miraculous.

Marinette frowns at Plagg. “I’m not Ladybug,” she tells him. “I don’t have her luck.”

There’s something less accusatory in Plagg’s tone, closer to fond, as he says, “I think Tikki’s still trying to do what she can.”

There’s silence for a moment, and then: “That’s my kwami,” Marinette realizes, voice quiet. “Right? Her name’s Tikki?”

“Yes,” Plagg tells her, his voice soft in a way Adrien knows all too well-- forlorn and sad and more than a little hopeless.

“With any luck,” Adrien cuts in, “the flock should have dispersed a little now. We should see how many we can get down before you have to go back to class.”

“I still have two more sandwiches for you,” Marinette says sternly.

Adrien smiles wide at that. “A reward,” he says. “One sandwich per akuma.”

“If that’s the case,” Marinette says dryly, “I’m owed a lot of sandwiches.” She zips her bag closed and helps Adrien to his feet.

“Plagg, how long will it take to fix my ankle?” Adrien asks as he hobbles up, trying to keep his weight off his bad foot.

Plagg shrugs. “Within an hour, hopefully. Try not to make it any worse.”

Adrien would normally try to give some sarcastic snap-back to that, but he just nods grimly and says, “Do my best. Claws out.”

Marinette opens the door a crack to peer out. “Looks like the coast’s clear.”

Chat follows her cautiously out onto the street, trying not to limp too obviously just in case anyone’s around. In times like this, Paris _needs_ to think that their hero is invulnerable.

He’s really, really not, but if they give up on him he’s not sure what he’ll do.

“How long do you have left for your lunch break?”

Marinette checks her phone screen. “Half an hour. I can go a little over, Ms. Bustier’s good if I tell her I was out with you.”

“Using crime-fighting as an excuse to skip class?” Chat tsks, but Marinette’s already smiling at him.

“Pot, kettle,” she says simply, because they both know the punchline, and steps forward. “You okay to backpack?”

Chat leans forward obligingly, bending down just enough for her to swing onto his back. It’s hard to balance her weight with a bad ankle, but before it can become a problem he launches them up to roof level.

It annoys Chat to no end, but Paris’ skies are no longer a safe place for him to travel. At least Stoneheart had been earthbound; he _hates_ flying akumas. He never wants to fight a flock of twelve year old boys again.

They just barely clear the roofline - God bless standard building regulations - and Chat peers around. There seems to be no akuma directly nearby, but there’s one a little ways off that seems to be shrieking at something. Probably at a person, the birds tend to get kind of aggressive if provoked.

“Aiming for another sandwich?” Marinette asks lightly, as he carefully starts vaulting them down the street, doing his best to stay below the roof height and not mess with his ankle.

“If I’m lucky you’ll be in sandwich-debt by the time you go back to school,” Chat says. He knows she can’t see his usual cocky grin, but he sticks it back on his face to try and get back into Chat Noir’s classic swagger.

Marinette laughs anyway, which he counts as a victory.

 

* * *

 

 

This is a mess.

It’s two days later, and this is _still_ a fucking mess.

Adrien has taken down thirty-four akumas and he wants to cry. He would like nothing more than to sit down, cry, and never have to get up again. That would be _great_.

The problem is becoming that the akumas are either scattered across all of Paris, or have realized their safety in numbers. Chat Noir, with Marinette or without, can’t take on a flock of akumas at once, so he’s left travelling across the entirety of Paris to find a single akuma in the suburban outskirts, where there’s a lot more trees than closely-packed buildings and he’s at a disadvantage.

Chat wouldn’t have said he was a big-city guy before those, but after the hell of trying to get an akumatized birdboy out of a tree, he’ll take skyscrapers and streetlamps any day.

Marinette, as usual, is a giant help. She brings him lunch and - for the last two days - second breakfast. He came to pick her up from her balcony yesterday, and she dragged him down into her bedroom and forced him to detransform. She stuffed Plagg with expensive camembert and, her face a bright enough pink to match her walls, tucked herself in against his side and didn’t let go until he’d taken an hour-long nap.

In addition, Marinette’s been making him sleep at hers overnight. In her room. With her parents’ permission, which Chat is immensely grateful to have. She’s assured him they don’t know his identity, but when she explained that Chat needed to sleep at least a few hours a night, her parents nodded, albeit a little doubtfully.

There’s a mess of blankets and pillows on the spare mattress on her floor, and there’s a tiny circular indent in the blankets at the foot of Marinette’s bed, where Plagg’s been sleeping next to her.

Chat’s ears still go pink when he thinks about it. When all this is over, he should-- do something about that. Something that involves Marinette and hopefully a lot of kisses.

There’s a post on the Chat Channel about a lone akuma seen trying to build a nest partway up the Eiffel Tower - which is carefully excluded from the “safe zone,” since they seem to like nesting in it - and that’s fine for Chat, since he can stop at Marinette’s on way.

Sure enough, Marinette’s sitting in a deck chair, scrolling through the Chat Channel on her phone when he arrives.

“Ready to go, my lady?” he asks her with the best roguish grin he has on hand.

Marinette rolls her eyes without looking at him - he can tell by the tiniest movements of her head, even without seeing her face - and tucks her phone into her purse, clasping it shut. She settles the strap on her shoulder and turns to look at him.

“You’re late,” she says, teasing, “school’s been out for a whole twelve minutes.”

“I am perfectly on time,” Chat protests. “You have a twelve-minute break, which is exactly as I planned.”

Marinette snorts. “We’re going for the Eiffel Tower?”

“You read my mind,” Chat says. He likes the banter. It takes his mind off the bruises and the exhaustion and the mild depression he _might_ be developing.

He swings Marinette up onto his shoulders with ease. “Are you lighter than normal, Mari?” he says playfully.

“You must just be getting jacked,” Marinette says with a laugh. Her voice grows somber as she adds, “I do think you’re getting thinner, kitten. I’m worried about you.” Her knees dig in against his ribs, as if to prove a point.

“I’m doing just fine,” Chat assures her as he pulls out his baton.

He’s not doing fine, he’s really kind of not and he wishes he could be honest, but he _can_ ’t. Because if he’s honest, then Marinette will feel like he needs a Ladybug. That’s not the way it should be.

It _has_ to be her choice. It can’t be something he asks of her. He’s not sure why, but he knows this fact like second nature. It has to be her choice.

Or, maybe worse - a fact he only lets himself consider briefly, in the dark moments where he lets the sheer weight of what he needs to do overwhelm him - is that maybe he is honest, and Marinette doesn’t become Ladybug for him. He asks her to, and she says no.

In his more rested moments, he knows it’s dumb. He knows she would, Adrien knows above everyone else in this world that Marinette would do that for him. He knows the type of person she is, the life she leads.

God, better than anyone else, he knows the life she leads.

Chat shakes the thoughts from his mind, reminds himself that he has work to be doing, and launches off towards the Eiffel Tower.

He’s lucky, apparently; this akuma seems happy to nestle in one of the feet of the Eiffel Tower, rather than at the peak. It means Marinette might actually be able to help.

Over the last couple of days, since Paradisian became such a problem, they agreed that if a fight looks like it’s all aerial combat, Marinette should avoid getting involved. It adds another body for Chat to keep track of, and she’s got no way of catching herself if something goes awry. In a couple situations, sure, she’s been useful, but Chat trusts Marinette to gauge risk versus reward.

She’s the perfect Ladybug in that respect, as well as all the rest. She knows what they can and can’t do, and she knows how to balance that with the consequences.

She’s the perfect Ladybug, but she’s got no suit so Chat sets her down at the base of the Eiffel tower, winks, and says, “Watch me work, princess.”

He vaults up towards the akuma as fast as he can humanly go. He’s managed to get a few by surprise.

This doesn’t seem to be one; as soon as he’s close, Paradisian looks straight at him and lets out a warbling cry.

 _Fuck_. Chat recognizes that cry instantly for their alarm call.

He lunges regardless, hoping to maybe get one down before a flock arrives, but the akuma’s ready and leap outs of the way, hopping up two beams.

His life’s just not going to be easy today, is it.

Chat leaps up after it. This, he’s used to-- the Paradisians love playing games. They always seem to fly just out of Chat’s reach every time he tries to grab them.

Chat feints a lunge, but as the akuma leaps up to another perch, he launches out with his baton. Paradisian realizes a moment too late, and Chat’s grabbing onto its wrist before it can get away.

He wrenches Paradisian backwards and slams the bracelet against the corner of the steel beam he’s standing on. He fumbles to grab the butterfly in one hand and the un-akumatized victim in the other, hauling her up from the drop to let her wedge herself between two beams that form a crux in the Tower.

“Chat!” he hears Marinette yell from below him. “Chat, we need to go!”

Chat looks up to see impending doom.

There’s a flock of-- maybe fifteen akumas, give or take, spread out over the rooftops nearby. They all seem to be fixed on the Tower, called by the alarm cry.

Chat can’t possibly fight that many. He’s not sure he can outrun that many.

He grabs the victim, a younger girl, around the middle and drops inelegantly to the ground. He can’t break his fall with the baton, both hands full, so he just winces and rolls when he hits the ground, praying nothing’s sprained or broken.

“Butterfly,” Marinette says, at his side instantly. He uncurls to hand her the butterfly, which she crams into a bottle and jams back into her purse.

The little girl wriggles out from Chat’s grasp, picking herself off the pavement, and takes off running at Marinette’s instruction.

“Good luck, Chat Noir and Marinette!” she calls over her shoulder.

Chat leaps to his feet and grabs Marinette’s wrist. “We need to go,” he says. The flock’s only moments away now, they don’t have _time_.

“We can’t run,” Marinette says. “We have to try.”

It’s the _we_ that catches him.

Chat can’t beat that many, but Chat’s not necessarily alone. He has Marinette.

That fact alone shouldn’t be enough to make him willing to fight a pack of akumas, but somehow it does. Everything will be okay, he stands a chance. He has Marinette, his lucky charm.

“I’ll try to stay low,” Chat says. “Do what you can, don’t get too high.”

“Stop fussing and starting working,” Marinette tells him. Her tone is teasing, but Chat doesn’t mistake her words for anything but an order.

“Anything for you, princess,” he says.

As they arrive, several of the akumas alight on the beams of the Eiffel Tower, watching warily. Three don’t hesitate, flying into a dive directly towards Chat.

He launches himself up at them.

Chat’s tired - beyond tired at this point, really - but the familiar adrenaline surge kicks in to cover the exhaustion, and he tackles one of the akumas midair before it can get away as they all try to peel off, realizing their dives have been interrupted.

Chat’s grappling for the bracelet on the akuma’s wrist, trying to pin down a wing with one leg, when something hard and heavy slams into the back of his head. It makes his ears ring with the force, and he realizes distantly that he might have to worry about a concussion.

He glances behind him, turning to see the flurry of a second Paradisian’s wings beating at his head, but before he can react Marinette’s charging in to push the akuma’s wings back and clear a space for him.

Chat manages to jerk the bracelet off Paradisian’s wrist, and instinctively curls his hand closed to trap the butterfly in his fist.

Marinette’s wrestling with one of the other two on the ground as the second launches itself into the air so it can dive at her, taloned feet outstretched. Chat tackles it out of the air before it can reach her, wheezing as the flailing wings batter him to the ground and the impact knocks the wind from his lungs.

There’s a screech from his left, and he barely manages to roll out of the way of another set of talons as they scrape across the cement inches from his head.

Marinette’s got yet another akuma grabbing at her left arm, interfering with the grapple she’s still trying to win-- there’s too many, Chat realizes. Even if they manage to deal with all of them, that’s too many butterflies to catch at once.

“We need to split!” Chat darts across the ground on all fours to spring into a leap at the one trying to lift Marinette up.

The Paradisian on the ground with Marinette has one wing pinned beneath her foot, and she’s holding an arm in one hand and a leg in the other. Chat leaps past her to snag the bracelet off the akuma’s wrist-- he’s out of hands to hold butterflies in now, but it’s two less to deal with.

Marinette grabs Chat by the wrist as the Paradisian below her starts to detransform. There’s the clamour of birdcalls behind them, loud and raucous in the empty plaza around the Tower, but Marinette leads them under a low arched bridge down the street, and huddles into the cover of the shadows there.

Chat tries not to miss the warmth of her hand around his wrist as she lets go of him to unsnap the clasp of her purse.

“Bottle,” Chat says, like routine, and Marinette’s already reaching to take the butterflies from him.

“That’s two whole sandwiches,” Marinette jokes, trying to distract from the noise outside their temporary hiding spot and the bloody claw marks in her arm and the way Chat’s breath is still ragged in his chest.

“By the time this is done, every restaurant in Paris owes me free sandwiches forever,” Chat agrees, but his heart’s not in it. He ignores the sound of the undamaged butterfly wings against the plastic as Marinette screws the cap back on.

“You good to go for round two in a minute?” Marinette asks. He can feel her humming with the need to get out there, to _fix_ this, and he wishes he still had that energy.

Jesus, he needs to sleep.

“Betcha I can get three this time,” Chat says, and he knows she doesn’t believe the smile, the playful tilt to his head, but he loves her because she doesn’t believe it and she still doesn’t say a word.

“Betcha I can double that,” Marinette says.

 _Please_ , Chat wants to say, because if she could deal with six akumas alone he’d cry from the relief.

But this is his job before it’s hers, because he’s made the choice and she hasn’t. She’s a superhero but she has no suit, so Chat just smiles and slings her onto his back and carries them towards the Eiffel Tower.

The remaining nine akumas - Chat counts them quickly as he approaches - all turn to look as they return. The call picks up again, like a symphony of angry birdsong, and Chat decides that they ought to go for the lowest ones first.

As he leaps up the beams past one Paradisian, he has a small heart attack when Marinette jumps from his back and goes crashing down onto the birdboy before it can scramble out of the way.

Chat hears the shrill squawk and decides Marinette’s probably got that one, so he keeps going to chase after the next one up.

The one he leaps at startles easily and darts outward from the Tower. Chat wedges his baton between two cross-beams and rockets out after that Paradisian, using his momentum and a careful swing upward to crash into his stomach.

He grabs onto the akuma’s wrist as it darts upward, and gravity decides to re-enforce its presence on Chat, who discovers that he’s too heavy for Paradisian to lift. They drop quickly, and Chat snags his baton in his other hand as they plummet back down past it.

The suddenness of their stop makes Paradisian’s wrist slip from his grip, and the bracelet comes off.

Chat feels his stomach drop, and lacking anything else to do, reaches out with his legs and manages to grab the falling victim by folding his knees under the man’s armpits as he detransforms.

He’s going to need his hands free, Chat realizes. Lacking anything else to do, he stuffs the butterfly in his mouth and grabs the baton with his hand.

It takes almost all of the strength Chat’s ever had, but he manages to hook his elbows over his baton and swing his legs carefully up, so that the un-akumatized man can grab hold of the baton, pulling himself up.

As soon as Chat’s legs are free, he scrambles up onto the baton in a crouch, used to finding his balance here.

The butterfly tastes foul in his mouth, like rot and pocket lint. Chat bites down on it vengefully, because he can’t do anything about it now, and grabs the man under the arms to sprint back down the baton and deposit him in the cross-beams of the Tower.

“Chat! You good?” Marinette calls from below him.

Chat spits the butterfly into his palm and shrinks his baton with the other hand.

“Got one for me!” he yells down.

He drops down the side of the Tower, bringing the man with him to find Marinette standing protectively over two figures, a younger girl and an older woman huddled together. A few akumas are flying nearby, but none are making a move yet.

“I saw a few take off towards the Seine,” Marinette tells him, “we’ll have to get them later.”

It’s at least a few less to fight right now. Chat lets himself be relieved momentarily, as he lowers the victims to the ground and sends them off into the safety of the city. Marinette takes the moment to stuff her butterfly into another bottle with the two she’d caught.

“I don’t have enough bottles for all of these,” Marinette says as she puts the small bottle back into her purse.

Chat eyes the akumas roosted up above. One looks like it’s preparing itself for a dive, but the rest are hanging back, watching cautiously.

“You still bet me four more,” Chat says, instead of telling her that he kind of wants to run away.

Marinette matches his fake-cocky smile. “Better get to it,” she says, and steps in close. One of her feet rests over his, and she’s got a hand slung around his back. Waiting for the lift.

Better get to it, then.

Chat launches them up towards the next group of Paradisians. Marinette flings herself into a huddled roost of three on the flat midsection of the Eiffel Tower, and Chat can hear her _laughing_ as she drops.

She manages to pull a weary smile onto his face, even now, as he follows.

The wing he lands on crunches awfully beneath his weight, and Chat has just enough time to wince at the Paradisian’s shriek of pain before another’s talons dig into his shoulder and split the suit and skin underneath, as the akuma tries to pull him off.

He thinks for one horrifying moment that Paradisian is going to pull him backwards, straight over the edge of the Tower, but as the akuma leans away Marinette darts underneath the arm of the Paradisian she’s struggling with. She grabs the akuma’s other foot where it’s trying to grab Chat’s other arm, and leans back with her full weight to pull it as hard as she can.

The akuma is thrown too badly off balance, and it tilts sideways, claws unlatching from Chat as it tries to regain its place in the air.

“Look out!” Chat yells, darting past Marinette. He ignores the crumpling of feathers beneath his feet as he lunges to slam into the akuma behind Marinette, about to shove her forward and over the edge.

Marinette wastes no time in pulling the bracelet from the Paradisian on the ground, and swings with her closed fist at the akuma trying to dive at her.

Chat tumbles further back, away from the edge, with the other akuma. There’s the flurry of feathers and birdlike shrieks as the akuma tries to wrench itself away, but Chat bites his teeth down on a stray hand and holds on, anchoring him to the akuma as he reaches out with his other hand and just barely manages to shove the bracelet off.

He has to leap away from the de-akumatized victim to catch the butterfly quickly, and by the time he spins around Marinette is closing her other fist around the third Paradisian’s butterfly and looking towards him.

There’s an angry red mark on the side of her face that’s sure to bruise, her lip is bleeding, and she’s not walking quite as evenly when she gets up, but she grins at Chat all the same.

“Four-two,” she says.

“Those were a team effort,” Chat protests, even as he uses his free hand to help an older man up from where he was un-akumatized next to Chat. There’s a ring of teeth marks in his left hand that neither of them mention

Chat scans the area as he quickly brings the first two down the ground, then Marinette and the last victim. The three victims hurry off, clearly sensing that this isn’t over yet.

And it _isn’t_ , but Chat peers up into the cross-beams of the Tower and can’t catch sight of a single akuma. He has no idea where they’ve gone.

“Butterfly?” Marinette prompts, empty hand outstretched.

Chat passes it to her, and she very carefully squashes it into the bottle without letting the other four inside it fly out. She’s right; she really didn’t bring enough bottles for this.

They’re going to need the Ladybug Miraculous eventually. The butterflies _can’t_ stay in Adrien’s bedroom forever.

Chat’s not sure he’ll be capable of asking, when he needs it.

Marinette is distracted putting the butterflies in their bottles, and Chat’s distracted by Marinette, which means there’s nobody to notice the akuma.

Chat hears the sound of wings at the same time Marinette does.

“Chat!” she cries in warning, but her voice rings out in the same instant that a set of talons close over his shoulders.

Chat yells as the talons pierce into his skin, sinking deep, and he can’t help as the yell stretches into a scream as the Paradisian holding him beats its wings down almost against his skull as it leaps back into the sky. The jagged holes in his shoulders and chest stretch and protest as they’re forced to take Chat’s entire weight.

Chat bites his tongue so hard he can taste the blood as he forces his jaw shut to stop the screaming.

He tries to pull his arm away, jerks it forward, but he can’t get any leverage and he can’t move his shoulders with the way he’s being held. He can’t reach the akuma or his baton, can’t bend his arms enough.

Chat looks down long enough to meet Marinette’s terrified gaze for just a second before another set of talons closes further down on his right arm.

As he gasps out in pain, cold air stinging against his tongue, Chat remembers to look up.

There’s one Paradisian bearing most of his weight, but a second has arrived to help the other out, and he can see a third perched partway up the Tower, watching with a familiar butterfly symbol across its face.

“Fuck you!” Chat hollers, trying to pull his arms away again. The words come out more as a snarl than a shout, but the anger bleeding into his head is easier than the terror and the pain, so he lets it blur into his voice. He hopes with sharp clarity that Hawkmoth can hear him.

Apparently the Paradisians have all received orders, because suddenly instead of going up they go sideways, slamming him with his arms pinned against a broad beam of the Eiffel Tower, held in place by their claws.

Chat scrabbles with his feet, trying to get a grip, find a ledge to get some leverage, but his boots slip against the smooth metal and he can’t find even a single bolt to press on. He tries to curl his arms in, but he can’t move his right arm at all beyond his wrist and even if he can bend his left elbow, he can’t _reach_ anything.

Chat realizes with growing dread that he can’t move. He can’t get out of this.

The adrenaline is rushing through his veins but it’s not enough, it’s too late. He’s helpless.

There’s the _thunk_ of something heavy on the metal beam to his right, the sound too-loud over the pounding in Chat’s ears, echoing around inside his skull.

Chat turns his head to look.

Knees scrunched up to its chest, the third Paradisian is sitting on the slant of the beam’s side, talons pressed against the metal as it grips on tightly. It tucks its wings against its back and reaches down.

He feels the akuma’s hand grab hold of his. Chat flexes his fingers, curls them into a fist, but Paradisian’s thumb patiently digs in just below his wrist.

Chat can’t stop his hand from uncurling, muscles forced open by the pressure.

Chat closes his eyes and waits numbly for the inevitable. A second hand with small fingers grabs the ring on his finger.

There’s the vibrating sound of something heavy against the metal of the Tower once, and then again. The vibrations strum through Chat via the beam at his back.

The ring’s halfway off when the hand vanishes from his fingers.

Chat’s eyes flash open, and he curls his fingers shut on instinct, ignoring the residual ache in his muscles to make sure his ring doesn’t slip off completely.

There’s a string, dark and so thin it’s almost invisible, wrapped around the Paradisian’s wrist, holding it up and away from Chat’s ring.

At the very end of the string, there is a bright red yo-yo with black spots.

Chat tilts his head back as his eyes follow the string up until he can’t see it anymore. 

She looks like she's upside down and she’s almost hidden by the lip of the platform she’s on, but standing there in all her polka-dotted glory, forty feet above him, is Ladybug.

 _Ladybug_.

She is the single most beautiful thing Chat has ever seen. He forgets the pain in his shoulders, forgets the ring halfway off his finger, forgets how to _breathe_.

“Gotcha,” she says.

Chat could cry.

Ladybug reaches back and pulls, and the Paradisian lets out an indignant shriek as it’s jerked roughly upwards, clean off Chat Noir and thunking against the beam above it as it goes.

Chat hardly pays attention to the two akumas still on him, clawed feet wet with his blood, content to just _watch_.

Marinette made her choice.

Better still, Marinette chose _him_.

Chat doesn’t see what happens, but he hears a cry of “Lucky Charm!” and can see the burst of light. The second akuma on his arm pries itself away and darts up to go help its compatriot.

Chat doesn’t see what happens, but he sees first one, then a second white butterfly flutter out from above the platform, white wings almost translucent against the blue sky.

The one remaining Paradisian, claws stained with Chat’s blood, starts to let go just as Ladybug leaps out over the edge.

Chat has never seen anything so beautiful.

Ladybug has the string of her yo-yo in one hand, and as she drops it streams out behind her like an unopened parachute, a stark black line against the blue sky. Chat almost thinks for a second that she’s missed, she’s misjudged the height or the speed or she’s too far out.

The trailing string in her hand snaps taut.

Ladybug spins in midair as the string catches, and instead of going down she’s hurtling in towards the side of the Tower.

Ladybug kicks the akuma in the face with both feet as she comes swinging in faster than it can get its claws out of Chat’s shoulders, and Paradisian shrieks as it gets thrown back.

Chat’s finally released, and he catches one hand on the edge of a beam to stop his fall. It jerks at the wounds in his shoulders, but he ignores the strain to watch Ladybug work, finally in her element.

The akuma is trying desperately to recover, but Ladybug has her yo-yo in her hands again and she loops it around the akuma’s wings. It twists, but before it can catch itself on a beam it starts to fall.

Chat grabs the akuma by the wrist as it falls past him. He hooks a thumb under the bracelet, and carefully braces it against the center of his palm.

“Cataclysm,” he says, and the bracelet crumbles in his grip, and he makes sure to keep hold of the victim’s wrist as the mist turns them back to normal.

It is a long-awaited victory as Chat watches the black butterfly spiral free, and is shut inside the flash of Ladybug’s yo-yo.

And then Ladybug’s beside him, smile on her face.

Chat has no words for her, just hangs onto the edge of the beam and stares, a smile slowly stealing across his face.

“I think that means I win the bet,” Ladybug tells him. She reaches forward to help the terrified, un-akumatized man from his grip, and shrugs her other arm under Chat’s injured shoulders.

She lowers them gracefully to the ground with her yo-yo. Chat finds he can’t take his eyes off her face, doesn’t want to.

She sets them on the ground, and Chat blurts, “Thanks.”

Ladybug looks startled-- _Marinette_ looks startled, beneath the mask, but a gentle smile spreads across her face.

“You needed help,” she says, like it’s just that simple.

Paris needs a Ladybug. Adrien has always known this.

Chat Noir needs a Ladybug. That, he can’t deny.

“I needed _you_ ,” he says, and he kisses her.

There’s not a fraction of hesitation in her response, the press of her lips against his. She smells like sweat and green apple chapstick and it takes just about every last ounce of Chat’s willpower to pull himself away.

“Sorry I made you wait,” Marinette tells him softly.

Adrien presses his forehead against hers and familiarizes himself with the outline of the mask around her eyes.

“It was worth it,” he says.


End file.
